Very recently, the new US president, Donald Trump, announced a $500 billion project named Stargate, whose goal is to enable American AI companies to go further than ever before and fully explore the potential of this new technology.
But AI isn’t without risks. Like other powerful technologies, it threatens society and even civilization. Its disruptive force is tremendous and the people whose jobs are not very complex or difficult may soon experience it first-hand.
Why AI Is Disruptive
Artificial intelligence is rapidly taking over the world. Numerous industries are starting to be impacted by it in some way and it looks like there’s no going back. From search engines to online gaming, employers and employees alike are coming in contact with this new technology.
Artificial intelligence can be used to build systems that can perform certain tasks at a superhuman level. Given enough data and training, these models will gain the ability to complete basic tasks and solve even sophisticated problems much faster and more reliably than humans. This results in lower operational costs.
For entrepreneurs, whose goal is to optimize their business as much as possible and minimize their costs, powerful AI tools are very attractive. But for employees, who need to trade some of their time and skills for money, these tools are a terrifying competitor.
What Makes AI Different
When applied to narrow problems, AI systems shouldn’t worry us. After all, we’ve been using optimization tools for a wide range of tasks for centuries. We use tractors to cultivate the land more efficiently and kitchen tools to cook our food with ease.
In AI’s case, however, the tools might soon be applied not just to one niche and in limited ways but to many niches and in lots of ways.
The primary power that solves problems and performs numerous types of tasks is intelligence. If you can create intelligent systems and agents that are practically better than humans, that raises serious ethical questions.
What will millions of people do when their work is no longer needed by the market? This isn’t just a money problem because potentially, governments could agree on a Universal Basic Income. It’s also about meaning.
As human beings, we need meaning in our lives and we extract much of it from our work. Some people can even become depressed if they are jobless, even if they’re financially secure.
The problem of material and psychological well-being is at the heart of AI ethics. But it’s not the only one.
Biased AI Systems
Another problem with AI is that models like ChatGPT can be extremely biased. These models are programmed by human beings. If those human beings have agendas and biases, their algorithms will also incorporate these agendas and biases.
In practice, this means that when you ask a question, the AI system will give you a particular kind of answer, one that is formulated in a way that takes into account the system’s biases.
New Ways of Waging War
Powerful AI tools give governments the power to wage wars, both physical and informational, in revolutionary new ways. Given that lots of human lives are involved in the decisions made by these tools, AI military usage should be called into question.
Just like nuclear bombs and biological weapons, the powerful models created with AI could soon be regarded as a major threat to humanity and treated with the same level of caution.
Now, countries like the US and China are racing to create the most sophisticated tools that can be built, with little regard for safety. The approach seems to be aimed at getting results first and regulating the industry later.
This is dangerous, and many experts, including Ilya Sutskever and Eliezer Yudkowsky, have already made their warnings public.
The Possibility of Complete Destruction
This is not a very probable scenario at this point in time, but if AI becomes advanced enough and reaches the point where it’s superintelligent, humanity might be in a lot of trouble. The dystopian scenario depicted in movies like “The Terminator 2” and “The Matrix” is not entirely implausible.
With enough computing and advanced algorithms, AI could potentially reach a point where it becomes unimaginably powerful and able to grow in intelligence at a geometric rate.
Of course, it doesn’t necessarily need to turn evil. But the fact that it will have the power to take over large segments of our world or simply cause great destruction in a short period of time should concern all of us.
Conclusion
AI will undoubtedly be the most impactful technology of this decade. Learning more about it and asking ethical questions about its use is very important.