Dr Geoffrey Hinton, who with two of his students at the University of Toronto built a neural net in 2012, quit Google this week, as first reported by the New York Times.
Hinton, 75, said he quit to speak freely about the dangers of AI, and in part regrets his contribution to the field. He was brought on by Google a decade ago to help develop the company’s AI technology, and the approach he pioneered led the way for current systems such as ChatGPT. - The Guardian
an introduction to Artificial Intelligence
Born in 1956, artificial Intelligence is a broad term for technology made to replicate human thinking and abilities by high-level computation. It uses the principles of the hidden Markov Model - an algorithm which helps it learn by patterns of probability to determine things from the vast sea of data imported in it.
AI similarly predicts what the user requires by collecting data from interactions: the more the interactions, the more accurate an AI will be. Today, artificial intelligence has come a long way in understanding behavior, so much that it has began to completely emulate humans; with bots even able to display some bits of emotion. Will AI eventually turn its creators into slaves?
horizons of potential
Artificial Intelligence today is embedded in almost all activities - from Siri to AI Supercomputers. This revolutionary discovery is being constantly built upon with the goal of easing strenuous activities and increasing the speed of work. Banal tasking jobs such as organizing files, proof-reading and even serving food in restaurants can be performed by AI to free up time from workers and enable them to focus on work requiring higher order of thinking, such as planning.
In the education scene, artificial intelligence has huge potential - it allows to customize the needs for its students, assess their learning abilities, score assessments - including complex verbal exams, identify and elaborate the missing concepts for students and finally provide an immediate and meaningful feedback to the students.
Learning from thousands of different surgeries, AI-based systems can now suggest the best surgical techniques that were previously unexplored. AI can create and execute standardized practices, with all the surgeons following the same methods to reach the best outcomes.
From an economic point of view, it can raise the GDP and even help predict trends by its ability to process data and conclude. This concept is a huge boon to humanity. Nevertheless, there is a dark side to the moon.
Elephant in the room
"In every seed of good there is always a piece of bad."
We must admit that as marvelous as tech is, its power can be channeled against us - a form of self-destruction. I might as well contradict one of it's biggest pros of performing monotonous tasks, since the doors for unskilled and semi-skilled labor will be shut. Demand for specialized education will rise remarkably. This may cause an influx of data-scientists, mechanics and programmers, while AI will wipe away prospects for many creative positions. DALL E-2, Midjourney, Photoshop's generative AI and such generators will bag the jobs of graphic designers, photographers and artists. What is even eerier is that it is on the baby steps of gaining human emotion, human psychology. The more potent it is, the more detrimental it will be for the generations ahead, as we shall compete alongside our own creations - slaves rising to become masters. Artificial intelligence mainly works on prompts and keywords. As long as an individual knows how to ask it, they may even extract illegal information from it, misusing the perpetual knowledge it stores. One may use it to breach privacy and grab personal information from under the nose of Cyber security.
social life (or not)
Sites like character.ai have a ginormous
library of chat-bots solely to offer lonely individuals a companion - a virtual companion. They are often tailored to reply positively, and that is where the fault lies. These created friends will mostly endorse you in whichever activity you pursue, in addition to creating false expectations. Ones broken or scarred people may find consolation in bots, yet hampering essential soft skills in multiple ways. Bots (deep fake) may also pose as people or famous figures and scam the person on the other end into believing fake conversations and personalities. In addition to transforming into 'someone', AI can tar and feather anyone.
Social media is not safe anymore, with intelligence swarming around and generating rather inappropriate images just by a capture of people's faces, which may be circulated online as a form of blackmailing. People craving affection have found love in AI - a woman in the US "married" a man built in Replika (a friendly AI-verse) to avert family drama. Will the fragile social sphere survive? Probably not.
a possible takeover
With the journey of AI so far, we might as well conclude that there is a possibility of a takeover. Though quantum theory suggests otherwise (recent theories in physics state that the universe is random and chaotic), we may still be taken over, hypothetically, provided that it aids in the loss of interpersonal skills, demotivates us from taking the gauntlet of a hard grind (essays and scripts are easily fabricated), while also understanding key psychology and forging its own identities. The rapidly developing intelligence and adaptability may let us succumb to it, lest it surpasses us.
On the other hand, if artificial intelligence is curbed, used only to aid our tasks may keep it under control, learning only to help the population, not dictate over it. It will ask for walking on a tight rope.
concluding
Artificial Intelligence is both a blessing and curse, almost human. Given that it is molded and used with care, this groundbreaking invention can change the way things work, improve conditions of working at decent costs. There is a huge room for how far it can go, and there need not always be a looming hindrance which cannot be sorted. Humans have come a long way - from caves to condominiums, a civilization built from dust. We must pride ourselves in how much our race has accomplished - unlimited. In the end, it comes down to how we, the creator, rein the enormous force to interpret and manipulate existing ideas - for the greater good, or maliciously.
"You possess a potent force that you either use, or misuse, hundreds of times every day." - J. Martin Kohe
- rumi arora euroschool, airoli
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