Everyone is talking about it. Why should I be different?
But I like to shine perhaps a little less heat and a little more light when I talk.
The first thing to know about AI: It isn’t.
I mean it is NOT intelligence. From when it was coined in 1956, it has always meant the same thing: It is an effort to mimic the behavior of people.
The concept has been around Science Fiction for ages. Perhaps the first serious consideration of the idea dates from 1949, when Alan Turing described a hypothetical test to try and distinguish between a person and a computer. The Turing Test would be passed if you couldn’t tell which was the computer and which the person.
Well, millions of people are putting AIs to the test every day. But I think an awful lot of them aren’t grading the test.
The word is CREDULOUS, meaning too eager to believe something.
I’m not saying AIs aren’t useful. They are. We use ChatGPT in our work. It’s a time saver. But we don’t put them on auto-pilot and turn over the reins.
There are numerous science fiction stories and movies in which people do just that with disastrous results. “War Gaes” and “Terminator” come to mind.
There must be some impulse in man that wants to believe in “easy.”
Let’s acknowledge that software has gotten a lot smarter.
The key missing ingredient is JUDGEMENT. Programs are capable of dangerously faulty “judgment” – matched in human behavior only by the insane, the drugged or drunk, or the mentally deficient.
The problem, I think, is AI is too new. I expect as people gain more experience using AIs, most will learn how far not to go in uncritically trusting them.
In the meantime, we are in for interesting times.
Fasten seatbelts!