Will humanity really go extinct? Think about AI’s Achilles heel

I am an artist. In addition to being a technology journalist, I also write novels and act as an actor. This is the man I have been doing for nearly 40 years.

During my career as a creator of various types of art, I have seen nearly every threat to my work. From CGI to clickfarms, from someone who spent a lot of time trying to break Amazon’s algorithms to someone who was cast in the role simply because they have a huge social following.

again: Best AI Chatbots: ChatGPT and Other Notable Alternatives

But I have never witnessed an event that fills creative types all over the world with such existential dread. artificial intelligence (AI).

This challenge puts me in a strange position of being at odds with myself. AI is a technology, after all, and I’ve got it covered. At the same time, AI pose a serious threat to my life.

But that’s not what this piece is about…at least on the surface. Please let me explain.

again: Generative AI will change career paths in technology.What you need to know

AI is powerful and remarkable, game-changing tools It can be used for very good things. AI is powered by very large systems (and trained on massive amounts of data), so it will always be faster than humans. Imagine the predictions AI can make for businesses, governments, and organizations. weather patterns, environmental hazardseconomic trends, population problems, pandemic… AI can accomplish such feats while sleeping.

Used wisely (and that’s the proper term), AI can do wonders for humanity. However, in reality, large companies are using AI to increase profits, at the expense of employees. A frightening number of jobs will be lost, and society may be viewed through a rather dystopian lens. That’s the way capitalism works, and we don’t care who we beat in the process.

But for those who feel sense of fatelet me try to allay your concerns by humanizing the issue.

What is AI?

First, we need to answer a rather important question. What is AI? A must-read if you want to learn more about what AI is. This guide By my colleague Maria Diaz.

In Maria’s words, “AI is a concept that has formally existed since the 1950s and was defined as the ability of machines to perform tasks that previously required human intelligence. This is a very broad It is the definition that has been refined over decades of research and technological advances.”

again: Problems Never Solve, Generative AI Can Help

This is how I describe AI. Imagine a large, highly complex computer program that can be fed with any data source. You have chosen to enter all the plays and sonnets written by William Shakespeare. After giving the machine all the work, the AI ​​begins the process of training.

Once the machine has consumed all the input data, you can request it to write a Shakespearean play about a bear trying to spend the night at the piglet’s house. Machines fail simply because they may not know what a pig is. Unless “pigs” are mentioned in Shakespeare’s works, the AI ​​may struggle with prompts. Therefore, it may be necessary to input the story into The Three Little Pigs.

At this point the AI ​​should be able to write the story you requested.

again: What is generative AI and why is it so popular?

But your story is still missing something very important.

The missing pieces that dehumanize AI

This is where creative types everywhere get a little hopeful. As you know, William Shakespeare has something that AI could never have: life.

Shakespeare lived and experienced. He grew from his failures and rejoiced (I think) with each success. Shakespeare was influenced by every moment of his life. As an artist, he can say that everything in the world influences us. We are transformed by human and animal contact, are moved by sunsets, and experience deep connections.

again: AI can create emails, reports and essays. But can it express your emotions?

All these emotions, along with years of practice and experience, lead us to the “Voice”. Every artist has a voice and we use it to make our work unique. A voice is something an AI will never have.

If you ask the AI ​​to write a play in Shakespeare’s style, it might get the iambic pentameter right. You may be able to replicate the style that is woven throughout Shakespeare’s canon. However, AI I never have have his voice

again: Human or bot? This Turing test game puts your AI discovery skills to the test

You can feed any book written by Stephen King into the AI ​​and ask it to write a book in his style. Whatever the outcome, Dr. King’s voice will not be heard. why? Because AI is not Stephen King. AI has never lived its own life, nor has it experienced joy or grief. AI has never failed and learned how to grow from that failure.

in short, AI is not human And by no means.

When I first started thinking about the impact of AI on my work, I was very concerned. But then I remembered that I was human and had a unique voice. People read my work not because of the stories I tell or the information I put out, but because of the decades I’ve spent on it, clearly mine and anyone else’s. Because I have cultivated a voice that does not exist.

“Know” Return Points

to borrow Album title from Kansas, I’ve come so far as to go back to ‘knowing’. AI will continue to grow, but it cannot truly “know”. AI may be able to describe sunsets, but it cannot know them or be deeply moved by them. We are unable to experience it because we do not have the ability to feel how moving the sunset can be.

AI only knows what we tell it. If you don’t teach the AI ​​what a pig is, you can’t know a pig. AI can’t see pigs, pet pigs, or experience how smart pigs are. As we are not human, we cannot know these things.

again: Best AI Art Generator: Try DALL-E 2 and Other Fun Alternatives

So instead of narrowing your hand on the negative impacts of AI, you should focus on: Potential positive impact of AI. If companies with the skills and power to shape the AI ​​landscape can commit to ensuring that AI is only used for the benefit of humanity, what AI can achieve will undoubtedly be astonishing. .

But if managers choose to use AI for profit only, things can go wrong for everyone.That dystopia ends like this The majority of society has lost their jobsgovernments unable to solve rising unemployment and poverty, predictive arrests (leading to “guilty before being proven innocent” states), people seeing revenue dwindle because they have no money, support AI Companies that have decided to let go of their workforce.

The description above may sound like the plot of a novel (I’m pretty sure someone wrote it as I was typing), but it’s actually not that far off the mark. That endpoint will be the best price paid for AI growing out of control.

again: How I cheated and lied to ChatGPT

The salvation is that AI will never be human. It’s something we all have to remember every day. It will never have an opinion, soul, heart, or voice of its own.

AI is just an evolution of technology and will never surpass humans in their human capabilities.