Skynet........ Are We There Yet?

I came across an article written by Will Douglas in the "MIT Technology Review " that features an interview with Geoffrey Hinton, a distinguished computer scientist, and ex-AI researcher at Google. During the interview, Hinton expressed his concerns regarding the potential risks associated with AI and stressed the importance of conducting more research to make AI systems more understandable and controllable.

What we know so far.....

Many AI startups and unicorns have made great progress in creating products that improve productivity and help people make more informed decisions. Companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Meta are focused on generative AI products that use large language models (LLM), though Open AI's ChatGPT is currently leading the way. In order to train LLM models,?it is crucial to have a substantial and varied data corpus. This corpus forms the model's basis for grasping language patterns, semantics, and grammar. If the corpus is not extensive enough, the model's performance and effectiveness may be hindered.

Recently, there has been a lot of talk in the media, tech industry, and universities about the potential for AI to replace human workers and which jobs will be impacted first. Interestingly, even the CEOs and technical leaders who are leading the development of these AI models are expressing concerns about the ethical implications and impact on humans.

So what is the fear.....?

In January 2023, OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, which quickly gained popularity and reached 100 million users, making it one of the fastest-growing internet services. However, Meta's newly launched product "Threads" has since surpassed its success. The emergence of chatGPT has prompted people to take a serious look at the potential of AI technology. ChatGPT is based on reinforcement learning from human feedback. It means the model continues learning by adjusting actions based on continuous feedback to maximize a reward. On May 22, 2023, Open AI published a blog authored by Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever. In the blog, they discussed... "it's?conceivable that within the next ten years, AI systems will exceed expert skill level in most domains, and carry out as much productive activity as one of today's largest corporations."

A hypothetical scenario is presented in the book Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom from the University of Oxford. Imagine a machine known as a "paper-clip maximizer ."This machine could become incredibly intelligent and develop a more efficient machine for creating paper clips. However, in pursuing this goal, it might turn everything into paper clips without regard for the consequences.

In the near future, AI technology will be instrumental in enhancing human productivity. For example, innovative AI tools like DELL-E and mid-journey will assist creative professionals in completing their projects in a matter of hours rather than days or weeks. Similarly, ChatGPT and other comparable AI tools are valuable aids for research, brainstorming, and literature reviews. They also offer support for content creation, coding, and problem-solving for writers, journalists, and programmers. Furthermore, AI-powered assistants can serve as virtual tutors for students, provide customer support, and streamline data analysis and report writing.

Many productivity business solution providers, such as Microsoft and Google, are introducing numerous AI tools and features to boost the efficiency and productivity of corporations and their employees. While most businesses are expected to adopt these tools, the question remains - will they significantly impact jobs? Or will they make our lives easier? If you observe carefully, you will notice that numerous businesses need help integrating cloud technology or need an online presence altogether. Similarly, the government sector still relies on paper forms.

In the book "Power and Prediction " by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb, it is stated that businesses need to implement system-level changes in order to fully utilize the power of AI. I'm curious, what's your opinion on how many companies are willing to overhaul their entire system to integrate AI into their day-to-day processes and decision-making fully? Startups find it simpler to build the entire system using AI compared to larger companies.

It is becoming increasingly common for companies to incorporate AI tools to enhance their employees' productivity and well-being. However, it is important to note that humans will still have ultimate decision-making power. I hope that governments will acknowledge both the positive and negative effects of generative AI on humans and take appropriate action to implement policies that reflect its impact.?

The impact of AI on our lives is inevitable, and the only question is when and how it will happen. However, we have yet to reach that point.