Is Artificial Intelligence Dangerous?
A hot topic right now is artificial intelligence. The term AI is being used everywhere by companies, and marketed as new/improved versions. In this article we’ll see if those programs are really intelligent and if they are really better with an AI implementation. There are many other questions being raised as new the technology advances; for example, how they are going to be regulated, weather they are safe for everyone, or if they will be a threat to humanity as a whole. A prominently writer and speaker from Israel, Yuval Noah Harari, said that human beings are now hackable animals. He meant that governments and corporations know more about us than we know ourselves and this can lead to a digital dictatorships. Here’s the CNN interview.
More recently Linus Torvald said that AI is “90% marketing and 10% reality.” Linus is the creator and developer of the Linux kernel, which is the software Android runs on. So what exactly is artificial intelligence? The answer can be lengthy as it has to do with machine learning and computer science, so let’s water it down to an example. Chapgpt is a chatbot that can imitate human language and perform several tasks like writing, math, programming, etc. It is even used widely, even by lawyers to write legal bills and motions. Searching the web for how it actually works, you’ll find explanations of machine learning, neural network, and lot of what seems like science fiction jargon, so again I’ll simplify it to common language. AI works by feeding computers with lots and lots of data, so it can be analyzed and processed thoroughly and then it can make predictions.
As expected with computers making predictions, there appears many mistakes which are called “hallucinations”. They are a lot of example to talk about, some grotesque and some are kind of funny. Listen to this: *“Doctors recommend smoking 2-3 cigarettes per day during pregnancy.” * However, many times the information is being said with such confidence that it is difficult to know if what the program is saying is true or simply made up. It is after all only predicting. With this a whole different problem is created, to train the algorithms all our data has to be collected. And that includes not only listening to our conversations and saving what we write on our computers, copyright material is also used to train the AI. That means that an artist who spend a lot of time and effort to create his art to sell online, can have everything stolen and recreated by a computer in seconds.
Writer, designers and many other jobs are being lost to this technology. Not because it is better [many times the result is worst, wrong, or false] but because it is cheaper and faster. It is estimated that in the next 10 years about 40% of jobs will be lost to AI. What a bright future ahead! For the sake of efficiency and money human qualities are being replace with fake and soulless alternatives. Extremely low wages are paid all around the world to help train those models. The job consist of identify videos/photos and evaluating if the AI is right or wrong. Education is another area where this is being tested; besides online classes, several software are invented to replace teachers.
And there is more, yet another problem. Recently a teenager killed himself because he was in love with his chatbot, and when his mother took the cellphone away-seeing that he had a serious problem-he took his father’s gun and shot himself. His mother is now suing one of the tech companies that create those characters and fictional worlds. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad if it were only used for entertainment and apps like Instagram, but it is being used to write the news, in finances, and even the medical field. Imagine the future, Why pay doctors if you could consult with a certified AI doctor! There is little that we can do in this decaying world. AI is here, and it’ll continue to expand and rule over our lives more and more. I used one of google AI models to know what it was all about and didn’t like it. People would say that it is a tool and that it can be used for good or evil. Although a valid point, for now I have decided to avoid it as much as possible.