I was watching “Insiders” this morning, as you do, with David Speers interviewing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the United States of Americaland, specifically at Apple Headquarters.
As would be expected, the conversation – and later with the panel headed by Patricia Karvelas also – moved to AI and the threats it may pose to society unless checked.
There were included clips from various people in the industry warning about the dangers unless we slowed down the development of AI, and a general feeling it seems of doom and gloom unless Something Is Done.
As a slight aside, while watching the show, Trump announced via social media the term ‘AI’ is not good enough and it should be called ‘SI’ for Superlative Intelligence’ – some such nonsense. And of course he is heavily promoting the expansion of the technology as, as I understand, his two little boys have a few $ invested in companies that are involved.
(Whilst he is doing this, the good burghers of the US are up in arms as they don’t want data centres on every street corner. His logic (is that even possible?) therefore is warped, with mid term elections on the horizon and him about as popular as a fart in a space suit.
Be that as it may. Back to the story.
IBM, Cavemen and The Edge of the World
I can remember a time when the IBM PC came out, and similar foreboding was being broadcast that we would all be out of jobs.
I can imagine that way back in the distance mists of forgotten time, after Caveman Thog had smacked two rocks together and found fire, equally the tribe unanimously shouted, “We’re all doomed”.
Or maybe when the wheel was invented, everybody was terrified now that travel was easier, we might find the outside world is a dangerous place and if we go too far, we’ll fall off the edge. Safer to stay home then.
Scholars probably lamented that when books were invented, ordinary people being able to read and therefore learn, was the end of life as we know it.
Certainly, TV was supposed to kill radio and the movie industry (tell that to James Cameron or Christopher Nolan), the aeroplane would destroy the shipping industry, and I assume Elon Musk is muttering to himself his cybercabs will kil off 13TAXIS-R-US forever.
One Exception
My point it, the invention of something, with one possible exception, does not necessarily mean the end of the world as we know it, to borrow a song title. Humankind is very, very adaptable, which I guess is why we are still here after all this time, and aeons spent trying to kill one other.
I am guessing AI will, as so many things do, reach a plateau and then flatten out and just become another tool we use.
VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet and therefore revolutionary. When it first appeared, the hardest part of getting people to use it was to make them understand what it did and how to use it. We used to have to give lessons in the use of Word Processors for goodness’s sake.
Today, we all use Excel and Word without even blinking.
(If you use PowerPoint however, shame on you.)
Similarly, AI right now might seem scary and even threatening as we don’t as lay people quite yet understand it. But I reckon in 2, 3, 4 years’ time, we’ll probably be wandering what all the fuss was about as we ask Claude, or his / her successor, where the nearest pizza place is and what’s on special, whilst simultaneously physicists have him/her calculating the mass of the Universe and whether it being created was ever a good idea as it has made people cross (Sorry Douglas Adams, couldn’t resist).
Cure for Cancer? Alzheimers?
While this has been going, maybe, just maybe, Claude will also pop out the cure for all types of cancer, find the gene for Alzheimers and Dementia and finally, finally decide that tomato sauce does NOT go on pies bought from a bakery as that is sacrilege and an afront to the baker.
I admit, the cynic in me says the people holding the key to the padlock of AI WANT us to be afraid as then they have the power. But history shows those people don’t last very long.
Oh, and the exception? The two atom bombs dropped on Japan to end WW II. I am hoping that action showed everyone that, as possibly necessary as it was at the time, it should never, never happen again, no matter what.
As Isaac Asimov wrote 70+ years ago, “violence is the last refuge of the incompetent”.