Destroy humanity in 5-10 years? That's a cautionary prediction coming from some AI experts. Robots revolting and taking over has always been a common movie theme - as well as humans destroying the environment (we’re already on our way toward that end.)
AI is exploding onto the scene after percolating in research labs for decades. The ramifications of technology become apparent after the fact, already let loose and wreaking havoc. We’re not good at putting the genie back in the bottle.
AI is everywhere, and people are experimenting with it (including me.). From a huge database, it can quickly craft a response. It produces a mediocre written “draft” instantly, which can be used by humans to create something unique (like a screenplay, article, or lesson.) It can crunch data and with the help of some modeling assess risks, benefits and produce action plans. (This is just the tip of the iceberg… from my more limited knowledge base.) A general search of a subject will give a decent overview, from which you can dig deeper. But will you?
Facial and voice recognition were baby steps. What has appeared as an immediate danger is (deep) fakes - voices, images, and videos - depicting people doing and saying things that never happened in reality. Our senses will no longer be reliable arbiters of what is real - we’ll have to rely on yet more tech to let us know the difference! I’ve seen news stories where reporters call their parents with a fake AI voice, and it seems to fool them. Someone I know is proactively protecting against a new scam - a family member’s AI voice calling and asking for money. They now have a “safe” word amongst themselves for authentication. The potential personal and political fallout from deep fakes is daunting.
On the other hand, there’s an AI program for people like me, with a website full of resources, online classes and other content. It enables a student to search a term and AI will go through ALL the material and write a coherent summary, with a citation and bookmark to the references it came from. The good part is that is my teaching, versus a general encyclopedia search. We played with another AI program to see what it would come up with an outline for an online energy healing class. It was extremely vague and general, but someone with no personal experience or knowledge could use it to create and sell a course to an unsuspecting student.
Artist AI is an app that can generate visual art by inputting a style and subject. A pop singer gave her audience permission to use AI to clone her voice to make new songs (spitting royalties on ones deemed successful). The results were - well, impressive. AI has been trained using many singers’ voices, which is now a legal controversy. Meanwhile, Paul McCartney is making “the last Beatles record” - a resurrected, old draft demo - now paired with an AI recreation of John Lennon's voice (George too, although both are long dead. AI also made Paul’s voice sound younger!)
Dire warnings indeed. What is “real”, anyhow? More on this, and what human characteristics cannot be duplicated, next week!
Peace, love and healing -
Bear
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