You wrote, "We’ve been at the top of the chain for as long as we can remember - and have done so largely through intelligence. With computing, automation, ‘artificial intelligence,’ we effectively instate another predator at the top of the chain above us."
Yes, absolutely. ChatGPT is still just a toy (it couldn't consistently figure out how many letters were in a word, for example), but an impressive one. What gives me pause is that people were able to get around its content safeguards within hours. The controls are nowhere near ready for a more advanced AI. They need to be massively strengthened - and controls rarely keep pace with innovation.
My view is that it's probably impossible to prevent someone, somewhere, from eventually developing artificial intelligence that surpasses us. But it's still worthwhile to try to prevent bad outcomes. Somehow, we haven't had a nuclear apocalypse, which tells me it's possible to get a handle on controls. But AI is (much) trickier to track and control. We are going to see a very interesting, scary, critical next thirty years driven by climate change and AI evolution.
Thank you Stephanie! Yes, part of thinking about AI for me is knowing that it's coming and that I have to adapt to it. What I'm not loving is scrolling around the web and seeing all these companies advertising AI products for a wide array of purposes - and then people like Rich Lowry trying to claim that 'killer robots' are just like any other gadget or that we shouldn't have to worry about automation putting people out of jobs. It just IS going to change all kinds of things, as people defer key decision-making to AI, and unfortunately that decision-making will always be somewhat flawed because life isn't actually a data set. The outcome may not necessarily be apocalyptic but I'm surprised at the number of people welcoming our new overlords with open arms.
You wrote, "We’ve been at the top of the chain for as long as we can remember - and have done so largely through intelligence. With computing, automation, ‘artificial intelligence,’ we effectively instate another predator at the top of the chain above us."
Yes, absolutely. ChatGPT is still just a toy (it couldn't consistently figure out how many letters were in a word, for example), but an impressive one. What gives me pause is that people were able to get around its content safeguards within hours. The controls are nowhere near ready for a more advanced AI. They need to be massively strengthened - and controls rarely keep pace with innovation.
My view is that it's probably impossible to prevent someone, somewhere, from eventually developing artificial intelligence that surpasses us. But it's still worthwhile to try to prevent bad outcomes. Somehow, we haven't had a nuclear apocalypse, which tells me it's possible to get a handle on controls. But AI is (much) trickier to track and control. We are going to see a very interesting, scary, critical next thirty years driven by climate change and AI evolution.
Thank you Stephanie! Yes, part of thinking about AI for me is knowing that it's coming and that I have to adapt to it. What I'm not loving is scrolling around the web and seeing all these companies advertising AI products for a wide array of purposes - and then people like Rich Lowry trying to claim that 'killer robots' are just like any other gadget or that we shouldn't have to worry about automation putting people out of jobs. It just IS going to change all kinds of things, as people defer key decision-making to AI, and unfortunately that decision-making will always be somewhat flawed because life isn't actually a data set. The outcome may not necessarily be apocalyptic but I'm surprised at the number of people welcoming our new overlords with open arms.