You can't spell anything without A-I ...
What you’ll read about in this post:
Artificial intelligence presents a world full of danger, and yet, society has no problem running head first into this world. What’s the big deal about AI?
Many proponents of AI contend that this phase of technological growth is no different than any other form of industrialization. Are they correct?
A glimmer of hope in a dark world of AI — “Kasparov’s Law”
“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next 10.”
— Bill Gates
Who runs the world? Machines
For years, popular culture has warned society about the potential problems of computers and the advent of artificial intelligence. All jokes about Skynet aside, the concerns regarding machine learning are very real.
In 2015, OpenAI was founded with the mission to create a safe and productive form or artificial intelligence. Just seven years later, the company released ChatGPT (the ‘GPT’ stands for generative pre-trained transformer), a software which initially was an artificial chat bot with the ability to access a huge compendium of information and provide answers in just a few seconds to even the most complicated questions.
The Nvidia microchip used in the supercomputers of OpenAI is capable of over 300 ‘teraflops’ of processing. I had to look that up to understand that one teraflop means a computer can perform 1 trillion mathematical operations per second. For context, Sony’s Playstation 5 console has about 10 teraflops of processing power.
If you haven’t used ChatGPT or another AI system like it (Microsoft’s Co-Pilot isn’t bad, either), it’s an amazing tool which can do so much. Updated models of AI software can generate pictures, music, and video along with its early text generator.
Our work lives will change forever by AI. The computer generative tools offered by OpenAI and its competitors will deliver a serious blow to white-collar work. The ability to quickly generate high quality text, images, and video means that writers, graphic artists, and data entry personnel could find themselves going the way of the dodo. Companies like Amazon and JP Morgan have already sent news updates to employees regarding future reductions in employment due to the implementation of AI.
Large corporations are not the only ones utilizing generative AI. Small businesses have taken advantage of the fact that much of the AI software available is free to use. Of course, people or businesses can pay to access more sophisticated AI software but the free versions are still capable of outperforming human counterparts. It’s cheaper than hiring someone and generally more efficient.
Any type of work that is based on more objective, computational skills is prone to being replaced by an AI program. Unemployment rates, speculatively of course, could rise to an uncomfortable 10% or greater. Depending on the field of work, many of these individuals can be retrained to participate in the workforce in another way.
However, there’s an uncomfortable truth regarding employment and work potential that many people don’t want to discuss. Some people will never possess the intellectual ability to rise above jobs that require only basic skills. This isn’t to demean those individuals, but what will these people do on a daily basis?
Work acts as a part of a person’s identity. It pervades who we are as people to the point where this is one of the first questions we ask about someone we meet. Robbing people of the ability to contribute to a community will bring irreparable harm that could increase mental disorders and substance abuse.
Educational institutions will struggle to adequately prepare students to genuinely think. Students are using AI, but not in a productive fashion. Children are always looking for shortcuts in terms of their school work, and AI provides the ultimate cheat code. Need an essay written? Not a problem. Just tell ChatGPT the parameters of the assignment, the work or page count necessary, and watch it spit out the essay in seconds.
Students (and their parents) miss the point of many assignments, and that is to learn how to think. Rote information is part of the learning process, but every discipline is more than just factual data. For instance, I teach history, and I want students to know certain information, but in this field of study, students always need the ‘why’ more than the ‘what.’ While AI software can be a useful tool in helping to teach and learn, children will be unlikely to employ it properly.
Consequently, students aren’t the only people in schools misusing AI. A number of teachers have attempted to use AI to grade the work of students. The irony shouldn’t be lost upon us that we have students turning in AI generated content, only to be graded by AI.
AI risks further muddying the waters of news and information. In a post-truth world, it’s no small task to parse through the news and determine what’s real and what’s not. According to recent estimates, nearly 7% of all news stories have been generated by AI. And maybe those stories are accurate — most of the time, anyway. In several cases, these stories contained factual errors. Worse yet, many political operators create fake websites with AI generated content to slander opponents. (This occurred in the GOP gubernatorial primary in West Virginia last year.)
Human reporters can be held accountable for what they write (or don’t write). Machines are beholden to no one. Moreover, the ability of machines to generate content beyond text is terrifying already. AI has the ability to produce high quality photos and videos which are indistinguishable from reality.
AI also threatens the privacy of virtually every American. Government institutions and private corporations collect enormous amounts of data from users. Algorithms and devices like ‘Siri’ and ‘Alexa’ snoop on us and learn our habits and patterns of behavior, usually to sell us something we don’t really need. Imagine if a self-learning computer program accessed that information and used it to manipulate humans. Sound too ridiculous? It already happened.
Tech firm Anthropic tested its new AI software to see how it would respond when the software’s own existence was threatened. Testing included placing information in the system that revealed the AI software would be discontinued and replaced with a newer model. Engineers also floated information for a fake employee and planted e-mails which made it appear this employee was having an extramarital affair. The AI software threatened the fake employee with exposure of the affair if he didn’t help save the AI program. The software resorted to blackmail.
I suppose we shouldn’t be so surprised by this outcome. When humans create software to think, we do so using human rules and logic. Why would it not stand to reason that the flaws inherent in humans somehow find their way into our creations?
Imagine if anyone had access to all your medical, financial, and other pertinent personal information. What about your search history? Would you trust anyone with that? Humans accessing that information would be terrifying enough, but a computer capable of trillions of actions per second would be exponentially worse.
AI’s ability to process this information allows predictions about how a person would react in any conceivable scenario. Even if AI doesn’t become self-aware and abuse this information, those who control AI will exploit others with the data we willingly turn over every day. We may not care that our iPhone already knows where we’re likely traveling when we start up the car, the analytic power of a supercomputer focused on people with money and power could shape decision-making in unhealthy ways. The only privacy left would be inside one’s own mind — and it seems only a matter of time before we break that barrier.
Industrialization or something else?
While Hollywood has foretold of the gloom and doom regarding technology and machines, one of the most prescient examples of the dangers of AI comes from an unlikely source. If you’re a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, you might remember an episode titled “When the Bough Breaks.”
In this particular chapter of the series, the Enterprise encounters a legendary utopian planet known as Aldea, which has far superior technology, including a device which cloaks the planet from detection and a defense system which cannot be penetrated. In fact, the entire planet’s technology operates by an automated computer system known as “The Custodian.”
We find out that this computer system has been running the planet for generations, and in that interim, people have lost the knowledge about how anything works. They rely on The Custodian as their source of knowledge and direction, and it didn’t work out badly for them. The people live in peace and harmony, working in various fields that make them happy. The Aldeans, do however have a problem which requires the help of the Enterprise.
Despite their superior technology and direction from The Custodian, the Aldeans are no longer able to have children. They want the Enterprise to hand over the children on their ship to start new generations on their world. When Captain Picard refuses, the Aldeans simply kidnap the children and the crisis widens.
Dr. Crusher ultimately resolves the matter when she discovers that the planet’s cloaking shield emits a radiation which is causing the infertility of the Aldeans. They ultimately must choose to stop using the cloaking technology, and they see the depth of their unawareness.
The narrative of this episode details how the Aldeans stopped questioning how anything worked, and ultimately allowed their supercomputer to handle all their problems. Their ignorance is so pronounced, they didn’t think to ask The Custodian to assist in solving their problem.
Star Trek’s cautionary tale is already coming to pass in our world. The average person likely doesn’t think about how complex machinery and technology operate. These require time and discipline to understand, and those qualities are in short supply. Ironically, the ebbing of our intellectual curiosity cannot be separated from the sophisticated computer systems which now dominate our lives. We have access to more information than ever before in human history and we use these amazing devices to entertain ourselves in increasingly shorter time spans.
Is the advent of AI just another form of machines taking over mundane work we did by hand? No, it’s something different. In the past, machines supplanted the physical labor of humans. We accepted this as part of modernity. This is different, however, because now the machines are starting to think for us.
The AI boom is still in its infancy, and already we can see significant threats to our way of life. While the ability of computers to perform complex calculations in the blink of an eye rightfully astonishes us, we should proceed with extreme caution.
With every successive iteration of complicated machine learning software, the tiny bit of processing power within each human being becomes less engaged, less remarkable. Humans need meaningful work to effectively flourish, and this work, to some extent gives purpose to our lives.
A Grandmaster Provides a Ray of Hope
If you’ve never heard of Garry Kasparov, he’s considered to be one of the top three chess players in history. In 1997, Kasparov played a chess match against IBM’s “Deep Blue,” a supercomputer capable of calculating millions of potential chess moves per second. Kasparov had beaten the machine in the previous year, but lost in this particular match. Deep Blue’s victory marked an important achievement in the development of AI, and the loss impacted Kasparov, as well.
Kasparov didn’t spend too much time moping over his defeat. Instead, he learned from his failure. Kasparov took an opportunity to learn how to use the technology which had bested him. He paired himself with a supercomputer running chess software to play against another supercomputer. Kasparov found that the combination of a human and supercomputer produced victories over a human or a supercomputer alone. Even mediocre chess players could harness the computing power of the software to plot strategy and let the machine make the tactical choices in how to carry out that strategy.
It led to Kasparov’s Law, which states,
“… a human of average intelligence and an AI system working together in harmony is more effective than either working alone, and even more advantageous than a brilliant human working with a system poorly.”
Kasparov’s concept rightly sees AI and technology, in general, as a tool used by human beings to develop better ways of living. Humans must be the ones charting how to use AI, and even then, there are no guarantees we will use these machines properly.
Kasparov’s Law provides a glimmer of hope for a future where AI can be used to further the flourishing of humans. This technology has near limitless applications and could alleviate many of the impediments to a better way of living. But our track record isn’t always the best.
We use existing technology in ways that aren’t the best applications of our time and energy. Current estimates suggest that up to 13% of websites orient around adult content. There are at least 5 million cat videos on YouTube. The average TikTok user spends approximately 90 minutes per day using the app. Do we even need to discuss the cesspools known as social media?
If you want to contend that these technological forms of entertainment are harmless, you’d be arguing against the research. Throughout the 20th century, researchers noticed what was dubbed “The Flynn Effect,” which is characterized by the steady increase of IQ scores over time. The phenomenon has been linked largely to the widespread nature of public education, better nutrition, and smaller family size. Some researchers believed this trend would continue for a long period of time, or even indefinitely.
The Flynn Effect, however, did end prematurely in the 21st century. While researchers are not entirely certain about the causes, initial findings and predictions attribute the decline to decreased reading, digital distractions, and changes in the education systems.
It’s a bothersome trend, but what startles me more is the apathy of citizens about the dumbing down of America. Good natured people sound alarm bells about problems and we constantly live in denial, whether it’s climate change, the national debt, Social Security, the cost of healthcare, or any other major problem we refuse to address. Maybe this is one of the hallmarks of American culture — waiting until the last possible moment to course correct.