Thursday, June 15, 2023

The Unknown Future of AI

The intentions of developers of artificial intelligence have much to tell us about where this technology is headed and how it will impact our lives

By André van Heerden, Communications Director

“Intentions, whether good or bad, that don’t reflect the words and actions are only meant to fulfill personal goals.”
―Ashish Patel

It seems like every day there’s news about artificial intelligence (AI) advancements and the potential dangers and benefits it could bring.

Everything from how people work, the jobs that could be lost, how culture could be reshaped, the impact to education, and even to visions of a dark future where AI takes over mankind like Skynet does in the Terminator movies has all been covered.

A question that I keep asking myself is what is the motivation behind developing and perfecting AI? Recently, a number of leading AI developers raised the alarm that their own research and development could detrimentally impact the future of humanity unless government restrictions were put in place.

How many workers do you know are asking for restrictions to be placed on their own work?

In the original Jurassic Park movie, Dr. Ian Malcom comments on the genetic breakthroughs that led to cloning dinosaurs by saying, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

So again, what is the motivation to keep developing AI?

That motivation really matters. Journalist, author, and social critic H. L. Mencken noted, “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”

Social media at first seemed to be motivated by enabling people to better connect with others. However, more and more reports are coming out proving that the motivation behind the social media platforms is to hook and addict viewers with more and more content that they control and can therefore increase advertising revenue and market share.

A recent report about TikTok said that young teens—a primary target audience—were fed a diet of darkness about body image, self harm, substance abuse, and illicit sex, all to trigger its audience to keep watching and watching and watching.

This shouldn’t surprise us as selfish intentions fuel most things around us. Politicians are often more interested in being reelected than serving the public. Corporations jump on political messaging just to try to look good and sell more products. Movie producers release movies in 3D—even when it’s not necessary—just so that they can charge more.

So, does AI have good intentions or bad?

On the plus side, there are many applications for it. Within the field of medicine, AI will help doctors with difficult diagnoses and help researchers find cures to devastating diseases and ailments.

AI has proven indispensable for air traffic control systems and other complicated travel and organizational systems.

The risks of AI though are also becoming more and more apparent. Everything from artificially created school essays to music copyrights to national defense are troubling.

The industrial revolution, which began in the 18th century, has been said to have had the biggest impact on human lives in all of history. The burgeoning ability to use technology and machines to help with everything from agriculture to energy to transportation forever altered how people worked.

Since then, more and more new technologies and machines have continued to impact our daily lives. Many jobs have ceased to exist because of these innovations, but many others have been created because of them. AI is predicted by some to impact jobs and work more than the industrial revolution because it has the ability to transform all industries from top to bottom, leaving no one untouched.

And I think it’s here, in the lists of good and bad applications and the vast array of possibilities, that the real answer to the motivation to create it is found. The more applications, the more profit can be generated by it—regardless of the consequences.

Author Amish Tripathi wrote that “it’s our greed to extract more and more from good that turns it into evil.”

Something else to consider in questioning people’s motivation in developing AI is what motivation the AI itself could have in the future. If AI evolves to truly be able to think, it may not think as we predict or can control.

World renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking noted, “You’re probably not an evil ant-hater who steps on ants out of malice, but if you’re in charge of a hydroelectric green-energy project and there’s an anthill in the region to be flooded, too bad for the ants. Let’s not place humanity in the position of those ants.”

Both technological advancements and change are inevitable. To cope with these changes, everyone, everywhere will need to learn and adjust both at work and in society at large.

Understanding the potential intentions of AI, and not just the applications of it, should help in navigating an uncharted future. It’s also important to remember that the future isn’t uncharted because AI is changing everything. It’s uncharted because it’s always been that way.

“The unknown future rolls toward us,” said Sarah Connor in Terminator 2. “I face it for the first time with a sense of hope because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too.”

The Unknown Future of AI

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