Summary
There is concern that Chatbots are already so powerful, bad actors may use them for criminal purposes. Is the surge in AI and new technology generally threatening? For example, we have seen a rapid upsurge in scams as a result of online banking. Technology and regulation are now being implemented to prevent scams, but solutions always lag the upsurge.
The world has always been like this. With the first industrial revolution, employees tried to smash machines because, like many people, they were frightened of the unknown. They didn’t like change and were understandably concerned about their livelihoods.
But our standard of living, health and knowledge has improved out of site. Your view may be optimistic or pessimistic. If you disagree or are concerned about the trend, comment below. What is happening with AI Chatbots, particularly the imminent GPT5 will be at a new level.
There is a book ‘Scary Smart‘ about future intelligence but I think the video below says it all!
Here is another more hopeful and positive video. There are many good outcomes for health, education and world problems that will enhance our lives.
History
For most of the past, change has happened at glacial speeds.
Only 7 ‘major inventions’ were produced in 1922, such as the creation of water skis and the malt blender. In 1923, there were 12 great inventions, like the first electric shaver and the invention of sound on film technology (Phonofilm).
All noteworthy and important, but nothing in comparison to the 278,000 patents filed in 2022 alone.
The Singularity
The technological singularity, or simply the singularity is a hypothetical future in which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization.
This is one negative definition. Ray Kurzweil, ex chief engineer of Google and co founder of Singularity University says it is the point that AI (Artificial Intelligence) develops GI, General Intelligence and can think like a human. Long ago, he predicted 2045, but GPT5 will enable it much earlier in a form that way surpasses humans.
Some experts, including Elon Musk, have issued an open letter signed by hundreds of prominent artificial intelligence experts, tech entrepreneurs and scientists calling for a pause on the development and testing of AI technologies more potent than OpenAI’s language model GPT-4 so that the risks can be properly studied.
While USA is ahead in the development of Chatbots, the concern of a pause is that bad state actors may catch up and even surpass USA. Regulation always lags behind development but in this case, it should be introduced quickly.
Scary Smart says it all, but what do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
References
Ricky Gervais had the best comment:
“If AI is getting out of hand why can’t you just switch it off; like we did for Nan.”
or something like that.
David
Thanks for commenting. Yes if only we could switch it off (like we did for Nan!). However being an optimist, I think quick regulation, vigilant monitoring and policing will control it.
As Alan Kohler said one night on That’s Finance, AI is coming whether we are ready or not. Well, I am definitely not ready and feel ill-prepared and scared. Perhaps that makes me a wimp?
Graham
Yes I don’t think we are ready! but I am hoping the world will wake up quickly, regulate, be vigilant in monitoring and policing. The good people far outweigh the bad! You know I am an optimist!
Campbell
Hope all is well with you.
It’s’Scary Smart’ and reminds me of an old movie where the robots take over the world and the people end up being their slaves. At the time just Hollywood’s big imagination, but perhaps it’s happening. Necessity is the mother of invention and with labour cost and scarcity effecting production and services perhaps AI is the answer. We will be able to play more golf, sit on the beach with robot lifeguards then go to the club or pub and be served by robots. Robots will produce the goods & services, robot governments collect the taxes and robot’s hand out the welfare.
Truly scary if it develops without due process, but possibly just the advancement of human evolution which to date has generally improved our standard of life. Keep up the good work.
Foulsh
John
Couldn’t agree more. All advancements have improved quality of life and this one is huge. but humans will never sit by idle. They get bored, so it’s exponential advancement from here as usual.