Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing not only the way we do things and interact with others, but also what we know about ourselves. It's already a well-worn cliché. This Fourth Industrial Revolution is expected to have a significant impact on human industry, society, and economic changes in the 21st century.cent Over a century.
What exactly? Some people think of AI as a technology that enables computers and machines to function intelligently. Some see it as a more effective, flexible, and faster machine that replaces workers. Others consider it to be a system that interprets external data, simulates human learning from such data, solves problems, and uses the acquired knowledge to accomplish specific goals or tasks.
Most people don't realize that AI is the result of nearly 70 years of development. In the 1950s, some very basic machines appeared that demonstrated human intelligence. By the 1980s, we had evolved into machines that learned from historical data. By the 2010s, we had the first machine learning models that mimicked the functionality of the human brain. A decade later, deep learning models of generative AI emerged that create “original” content.
It's easy to get lost in all the categories, from reactive machines (those that respond to input from pre-programmed rules and have no memory of past experience, like simple chess). Limited memory AI (systems that store past experiences and use them to make decisions, such as self-driving cars). Theory of Mind AI – A still hypothetical type that can understand and model the thoughts, beliefs, and emotions of others. Self-aware AI is another hypothetical model of consciousness, similar to science fiction, that is self-aware and has its own desires and beliefs.
There are countless examples of AI applications. Its earliest forms were robots automating manufacturing and quality control, consumer assistants such as Siri and Alexa, followed by recommendation systems for e-commerce (e-Bay, Amazon), and later expanded to fraud detection (banks), transportation (self-driving cars), chatbots, image and facial recognition, and medical diagnosis and treatment (robots dispensing drugs and assisting with precision surgeries in Mater Dei).
The list is endless. AI is being used in education, entertainment, cybersecurity, agriculture, law, real estate, lifestyle, navigation, vision, gaming, social media, marketing, astronomy, travel, and more. It's even in the newspapers now. There have already been several instances where news reports and opinions have been written by AI. Serious journalists and newspapers will tell you whether this is the case (always look at the bottom of the article).
Do we really need AI? take me Choice No. 1 is to spend a few hours reading about the forms of AI, who has written and said what they say about AI, who are the companies involved in the industry, where AI is being used, the scope of its use, the cost, the energy required for machine learning, and all sorts of other information. Option two is to ask ChatGPT or another AI application to write 1,400 words about everything I just mentioned. I just ran this and it took a total of 3 seconds. If you ask for 2,400 words about it, it still takes 3 seconds.
Some might say it's obvious what to do, especially since I wasn't paid to write this article. However, for me, the downside of letting the AI do it is that I don't get any joy out of it. As a semi-retired person, I would rather dedicate a few hours to myself than just three seconds. It's fun to learn, but I often get stuck in my search for things that have nothing to do with what I'm writing about. AI would never do that.
Until recently, the problem with using AI to write this article would be that it didn't follow the style I've developed over the years that is immediately recognizable to those who follow me. But that doesn't matter anymore. There's a tool that reads every article I've ever published, analyzes the language footprint, and edits the 1,400 words you need to fit your style.
Unsurprisingly, my choice 1 is completely contrary to Malta's national AI strategy. The strategy would use AI to gain a “competitive advantage in the nation's efforts to become a leader in the field of AI.” The government's plan is built on three pillars: investment, start-up and innovation. Public sector recruitment. and private sector recruitment. Malta Enterprise, MITA, educational institutions, the MFSA and dozens of other organizations are working hard on this initiative, spending millions of dollars in public, EU and private funding.
Modern Luddites would say that AI will have a huge negative impact. They claim that millions of people will lose their jobs. Wealth inequality will increase as investors and professionals cash in at the expense of the uneducated and unskilled. Ethical issues will become even more complex. AI may even destroy humanity itself. No doubt some of these diseases will occur. Liberal intellectual Henry Steele once said: “Change does not necessarily guarantee progress, but progress requires relentless change.”
I was shocked by the words of former Greek leader George Papandreou at the United Nations AI for Good Summit in Geneva. Despite the tech industry's efforts to position AI as the foundation of all human knowledge, Papandreou believes that Plato would see AI as “intriguing and compelling, but misleading and far from the truth, not the sun outside the cave but the shadow inside it.”
Of course, he was referring to Plato's cave. There, people watch shadows flicker on the walls, unaware that the fire just behind them is distorting reality into a world of shadows. If someone were to escape from the cave, their eyes would be blinded by sunlight, but eventually they would be able to see the world as it really is. Unfortunately, the others could not be rescued as the fugitives could not be persuaded to leave the cave.
Plato wrote the Allegory of the Cave around 380 B.C., and Papandreou says he's been writing it for as long as today. Papandreou believes that AI could be used by demagogues and powerful people to centralize power and bully, if not control, society. They will do this by distorting facts and persuading people to live in the shadows of virtual reality echo chambers, rather than interacting openly in genuine dialogue with others.
The danger is there, just as it was when Plato's teacher Socrates called attention to the flaws in democracy. Socrates argued that people should debate respectfully and understand each other, rather than bullying others to win an argument. Of course, everyone knows he was killed for that. If he were alive today, would Socrates see AI as contributing to a just society, or as a threat at the hands of those who own it and control the algorithms?
Papandreou believes Socrates' answer would be that AI is one of the many contradictions and threats to democracy today. Democracy was invented by Greek philosophers to prevent concentration of power. But today, a few hundred people wield power and control beyond imagination. In the early days of AI, there were concerns that humans would be replaced by robots. Now we should be more afraid of humans becoming robots.
Note: This is not an AI-generated opinion.
