The AI Dread!

De: Phin Faynshtyen

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

AI fear and technophobia are real, and whether computer users are aware of it isn’t really the issue, as inherently we will all deal with it in time in consideration of where machine learning is going and the uncanny valley. ChatGPT 3.5 was released in 2022, and upon using it, I felt a tremendous amount of hope for the future and a bit of the ELIZA effect. I am still a huge fan of machine learning, and I understand Hinton’s, the contemporary father of AI, worries for humanity. The truth is that a great deal of the discussion around machine learning is just industry hype, and although AlexNet released in 2012 was a game changer from a computing standpoint, the world hasn’t and most likely won’t be tremendously impacted by machine learning for decades to come. There’s also the possibility that a tremendous amount of wasted energy and money are being put into AI, and a great deal of what Time’s “People of the Year” for 2025 are credited for and spent trillions of dollars on will be for nothing. Nvidia’s Huang, who sounds eerily similar to Mike Tyson when he speaks, is either downplaying or telling the truth about machine learning and its future. Personally, I think it’s the latter, and despite being a fan of Nvidia and Mr. Huang, I must say that there’s a bottleneck in the industry as they are the only GPU maker in town, which is a monopoly and unhealthy for the industry. Machine learning has improved search a bit and automated some things on the Internet, but data degradation and model collapse are happening. In today’s world, machine learning data comprises most of the information on the surface Net, and as users, we must remain logical about what the industry is selling us and what we actually have. The truth is that I don’t have robots working next to me, engaging in human like conversations with me, and assisting me in my daily life yet. This may be coming in the future, but I haven’t seen it to date. What I have seen is some improvement to search, but above and beyond this, what is being called “AI” is just really machine learning and not actually artificial intelligence. Machine learning has been around since Turing’s use of it in the 1950s, and we don’t know publicly if artificial general intelligence or artificial superintelligence has yet to be created. Therefore, a great deal of the fear surrounding AI is via industry promotion, specifically from Time’s people of the year for 2025, as we don’t actually have “AI” in today’s world, and most of what is being promised by them hasn’t come to fruition, may not actually be possible, and is just promotion. I like Elon, but Tesla cars aren’t better for the environment than gas-powered ones in combination with us not reaching Mars and colonizing it yet. I think dreaming is important, but it’s healthy to distinguish between fiction and reality when one is trying to navigate the challenges presented in the real world!

“Change creates fear, and technology creates change. Sadly, most people don't behave very well when they are afraid.” - Daniel H. Wilson