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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing the way we work, play, experience the world and interact with one another. In the midst of AI platform development, such as the famous GPT-4 by OpenAI, experts in the field are sounding the alarm on the dangers inherent in this process.
AI can be dangerous if used by those who want to cause harm. The potential of AI to mislead the population and manipulate systems is there. AI is a power tool, and like any other power tool, if misused it can be traumatizing. AI has the potential to use the internet, as GPT-3.5 and now GPT-4 to generate products and processes that have real-world results. ChatGPT can be used to cheat, and impressed Bill Gates when it passed an AP Biology test, but it also has the ability to synthesize information and create a product to help people. Recent supply-chain issues requiring negotiation have been navigated using AI resulting in a post-lockdown healing of economic damage.
GPT-4 is a step forward from GTP-3.5, which established OpenAI’s signature product. GPT-4 has a lot of potential to disrupt, and Goldman Sachs recently projected that AI could remove up to 300 million jobs worldwide. Exposure to AI in our occupations puts our current ways of living and thus our way of life and quality of existence in question. Individuals may be harmed by job losses, personal losses due to AI-assisted fraud and misuse and abuse by criminals. Again, AI is a power tool that enables criminals to do harm, but any power tool can be weaponized or turned into a lock pick or used as intended.
Elon Musk and Eliezer Yudkowsky have both sounded the alarm on AI evolution, and the threat is real. Yudkowsky, an AI researcher, has stated that AI could put humanity in danger in a myriad of ways. Another tech expert, Kevin Baragona, has compared the creation of AI to an “arms race” and similarly dangerous to people. While I agree that AI can harm people on a global scale, it can also enable people to more efficiently do their work and to pursue more meaningful professions. Imagine the drudgery AI can remove from our daily endeavors.
Tech thinkers have sounded the alarm on AI. OpenAI and other companies engaged in AI development of chat bots and other platforms keep moving the needle on their evolution. The potential for users to generate manipulative and dangerous “deep fake” videos, convince people to make dangerous decisions and hurt people is there, but so is the potential to heal. Just as the surgeon’s tools can be used to harm, they have a much better and more powerful potential to heal. What is needed is oversight on AI development by experts in the field, legislation to prevent fraud and abuse and protocols imbedded into the AI to stop harm before it is realized. We couldn’t stop planes, trains and automobiles from moving people, and the net result of their usage has been positive when regulations and controls have been added to their construction. We need to take responsibility for safely developing these new platforms, but turning all development off could be more deleterious than wisely building AI.
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