As a postscript to my last blog post which was on how generative AI is here to threaten writers – at least in the advertising and brand communications industry – I thought I’d write a short piece in favour of human intelligence.
From what tech evangelists have always told us, information technology is here to help mankind in our work and in our lives. And we have continued to believe them, because until now technology was at the service of man. And contrary to what we have also always been told about technology simplifying the world for us, we have continued to believe this fallacy even as the world around us has gotten more and more complicated as well as complex.
Until the emergence of AI. Artificial intelligence raised the level of technological intervention in our work and lives to such an extent that it can and is beginning to interfere in our lives. Generative AI, in particular, is the kind that can even create content, which is tantamount to saying that it can and will think for us. And who is behind all these revolutionary strides being made in technology? The demi-gods among us homo sapiens.
Let us not be fooled or blindsided by all the so-called leaps being made in technology, that has gone on without any regulation worth its name. There are various arguments being put forth in defence of AI of all kinds, from the usual ones to do with exponentially increasing productivity, to others that are about achieving the near-impossible in our day-to-day tasks. That it is open source, unlimited in its capabilities, and more. The lure of empowering machines with capabilities and skills way beyond our own seems to be so overpowering that we can scarcely see the negative consequences of doing so.
That is not being very intelligent, is it? And though this piece was meant to be in favour of human intelligence, I will have to say that not all of our own qualify. We have nothing short of a big battle looming, because some of our own have envisioned a world made up of their own megalomaniacal ideas as to how to advance and succeed at the expense of others. They haven’t contemplated the risks, the adverse effects and their mitigation. And we have others, who as lawmakers and regulators, haven’t considered them either. Both these constitute extremely powerful groups of people, who are determined to take us to that super-automated world where we won’t even be required to think.
That in a nutshell, is the world of AI. And while we are still trying to make full sense of generative AI, and super AI sometime in the future, there are other battles looming. Of the intellectual property kind, because while regulators were asleep or looking the other way, AI machines were all the while being trained using all kinds of information and data. Then, there is the biggest of all battles to do with AI supremacy itself between America and China. Two countries racing towards that AI-enabled futuristic world, without so much as a thought for what it will do to the lives and livelihoods of the majority of people on this planet.
There are a few tech leaders who are apprehensive of the exact form AI can and will take and of the speed with which it is advancing, who have asked for new innovations to pause and have warned of some of the risks. But there’s no use in a pause, no matter how long, if it isn’t going to be used to regulate the industry sensibly because it is going in directions unimagined before. And there’s no use in a pause, if governments and businesses cannot use it to get their people up to speed with it, and possibly even retrain millions of people for new jobs as might become necessary. There are others who warn of the risks of extinction. Hopefully, better sense will prevail, and soon.
For now, I’d just like to end my postscript with three short videos that I made with my thoughts on AI. A rejoinder, if you like, to the Transformer films of the late ‘90s that depict the revenge of machines on man. I tried watching one of them decades ago, but simply couldn’t endure it.
Then again, we humans saw it coming and there is something to be said for that. What about our blind faith in something that will transform us forever, and possibly in the most violent and brutish of ways?
As mentioned in each of the videos above, stock footage is from pexels.com and stock music is from Pixabay. I am thankful to them.
Peripatetic Perch 