CONSPIRACY THEORIES AROUND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
My wife bumped into a tradesman in the gas station who’d done some work for us on a renovation before the pandemic. During the pandemic like most of us, he got a little weird.
While he and my wife were in line paying for their gas, he began spouting his fears about artificial intelligence taking over the world. Apparently ‘they’ were going to put microchips in our brains and control our minds.
I don’t know where he thought ‘they’ could find ‘stealth surgeons’ to do the work when nobody can find a GP in this country. And in case he hadn’t noticed, there’s no need for implants. Everyone is spending too much time staring into their cell phones. And we give ‘them’ our data and preferences voluntarily in exchange for ‘air miles’ or a 1.5% discount on our groceries.
But I thought I’d look into the problem anyway, just to make sure.
Naturally, I decided to get my AI assistant to help start the conversation.
CHAT GPT DISCUSSION ABOUT CONCERNS AROUND AI
“There are several concerns and fears around AI technology, including:
- Job loss: As AI becomes more advanced, there are concerns that it will automate many jobs currently done by humans, leading to significant job loss.
- Bias and discrimination: AI algorithms can be biased, reflecting the biases of their creators or the data they are trained on. This can result in discrimination against certain groups of people.
- Privacy and security: AI technology can collect and analyze vast amounts of data about individuals, raising concerns about privacy and security. This data could be used for nefarious purposes if it falls into the wrong hands.
- There are concerns about who will be responsible if AI systems make mistakes or cause harm. As AI becomes more autonomous, it may be difficult to assign accountability for its actions.
- Some experts have raised concerns about the potential for AI to become superintelligent and pose an existential threat to humanity.
Overall, the concerns around AI are largely focused on the potential consequences of its increasing use and development, and the need to ensure that its benefits are maximized while minimizing the risks.”
So let’s address these concerns one by one using another form of AI that I like to call ‘actual intelligence’:
- Job loss: the industrial revolution gave us automation, machinery, and equipment that drove something that economists call ‘greater productivity’. That could be crucial in a world where fertility rates are declining almost everywhere.
- Bias and discrimination: and just how is that different from American exceptionalism, the doctrine of discovery, the British class system, the Hindu caste system, religious intolerance, or plain old nationalism?
- Privacy and security: that’s already a problem (get off your phone)!
- Control and accountability: and who is responsible for pollution or climate change?
- Existential risk: Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump (and his nutbar followers), the Supreme Leader of Iran (Ali Khamenei), and others could all represent existential threats. Could any of these people be described as ‘superintelligent’?
At least with BING IMAGE CREATOR and CHAT GPT, I could put together this article myself in less than an hour.
