Since the AI chatbot ChatGPT was released in 2020, we’ve been hearing concerning the threat posed by artificial intelligence. A statement signed by academic experts and tech industry figures even branded AI an “extinction risk”.
But whatever you think that of such warnings, an existential threat to humanity is prone to be a threat only in the long run. There are way more tangible risks within the near and medium term. So what are these and the way anxious should we be?
One longstanding and often-raised concern is the likelihood that AI could take our jobs away. This is something I’ve been considering since 1997, after I wrote my first artificial intelligence paper on neural networks .
Our aim was to develop an intelligent manufacturing machine that’s more capable than humans at detecting faults during machining operations. This would make the production system more efficient.
At that point, we wondered whether this could cause people to turn out to be unemployed when machines displaced humans on the shop floor. However, automation and other advances created recent job opportunities for people, reminiscent of programming the machines. So, a solution to the short pace of change in technology may be to retrain people for the brand new roles that technological disruption creates.
It’s not only manufacturing jobs which might be in danger. AI image creation software has been the topic of claims that it could put artists and designers out of labor. However, again I feel history offers some lessons.
The invention of photography didn’t replace painting and I don’t imagine image generators will either. It’s unlikely that AI systems will give you the option to supply novel artistic works within the short to medium term.
It’s possible, nevertheless, that within the medium term, machines could replace humans in lots of work positions. For example, in medicine, AI systems could integrate laboratory results, medical images and a patient’s medical history to offer a reliable diagnosis and prognosis.
They could also replace humans for lots of the tasks carried out in surgery. Other fields that would eventually rely on AI include market data evaluation, investment decisions and computer programming.
Despite the risks of unemployment, AI could have many positive effects within the workplace. For example, AI can act as a tool to boost human capabilities, leading to greater productivity.
In the short to medium term, the technology could have the same impact to that of calculators within the Seventies, to the computers that replaced typewriters within the Nineteen Eighties and the automation and robotics that transformed many factories within the Nineties.
Praphan Jampala
Bad education?
In education, there have been concerns that ChatGPT could negatively affect the learning strategy of students, or their health. For example, a student could ask ChatGPT to put in writing their coursework for them, bypassing the research and writing effort that results in a greater understanding of the subject in query. Perhaps a greater approach could be to switch and enhance how we teach and assess the outcomes of learning.
Making education more focused on practical skills and the implementation of information in problem solving could ensure a deeper understanding on the part of scholars. AI may very well be used for guidance, in much the identical way we currently use calculators, to assist enrich people’s knowledge.
In the near future, it’s vital that students pick university courses that understand the right way to use AI and select subjects that can still be in high demand with the continued expansion of that technology.
However, we now have assumed up until now that AI systems work as designed to offer accurate information. Unfortunately, we all know that this isn’t the case.
In May 2023, for instance, a US lawyer admitted using ChatGPT for case research. The lawyer’s filing was found to reference legal cases that didn’t exist. The chatbot had made them up. It’s not the primary time that these “AI hallucinations” have been reported.
Then we now have the very real risk that AI may very well be used for nefarious purposes reminiscent of identity theft. For example, criminals could use AI to clone someone’s voice. They could then phone members of the family and check out to persuade them to present out sensitive information that may very well be helpful for accessing bank accounts.
A variant of AI-driven identity theft is the usage of deepfake videos. Among the numerous possible uses, there are fears they may very well be used to impersonate politicians, influencing elections. Recently, Martin Lewis, an English financial journalist and broadcaster was the topic of a scam advert using a deepfake video.
But what of the longer-term “existential risk” to humanity? Warnings concerning the possibility that AI could wipe out our species return long before ChatGPT.
Whatever one thinks of this possibility, we ought to be mindful that AI will “live ceaselessly”. The technology is here to remain, which implies that it is going to accumulate knowledge, data and experience gathered from billions of individuals over multiple generations.
If AI is designed to mimic human beings, its survival instinct and consciousness might develop steadily over many years. As such, it’d stop being merely a tool to support us and turn out to be an entity in its own right. If that happens, there’s an actual possibility it could then turn out to be able to taking self-interested decisions.
This article was originally published at theconversation.com
