Since the explosive inception of chapt GPT, the debate and concerns about the threat of AI started all over again more vigorously with fresh inputs. After chat GPT hundreds if not thousands of AI tools, software and apps are made publicly available claiming to process extraordinary skills such as language processing, creating music, art, videos etc. These tools can write blogs or even poetry.
As a writer, I never thought of a tool becoming so skilled to process creative aspects that were human-specific throughout digital history.
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No other animal could create art or understand poetry. This was one of the few things that made humans unique from animal kingdoms. Only now do we know that complex algorithms can enable a tool to understand and process creative aspects? You have no idea how much I was saddened when I first saw a poem written by Chat GPT. However, it still seems a long shot for AI to be a poet.
Can AI replace creative people?
However, as far as I understand they can process these creative tasks only by analyzing and learning from works that have been done by humans throughout our history or any specific time period used to make that tool learn. For example, if we ask chat GPT to write poetry it can only create one from already existing works done by poets by learning patterns, styles, and themes and rephrasing them in different arrangements. It can not create a new style or new theme or a whole new thought like a human can do. The same is correct when creating other art and creative works. Now creative people can sigh relief here that for all original works, AI can not replace humans yet.
So how come AI can be perceived as a threat?
That is true that machines can not replace humans in creating original ideas. However, they still can replace humans in many fields such as manufacturing and assembly lines, data analysis and insights, customer service, routine administrative tasks, language processing, medical diagnostics, financial analysis, basic research, content and visual generation.
Millions of people are employed in these fields and industries and it is enough to consider as a threat of AI will take over these jobs. Yet again what seems like a threat is not a threat at all. It is merely a transformation and change in the allocation of jobs. If AI would replace humans in these jobs there would be other jobs created immediately. Humans will be required to handle these tools and work with them to increase efficiency and humans will be required to inspect them, monitor them and manage them. Other new fields will also be created for humans to be employed.
We have seen in science fiction such as Terminator or Matrix that machines can be very fatal to humans when it gains self-awareness. A conscious machine is the title of the book compiled with threats possessed by AI. But for now, it is merely a science fiction.
Humans so far have not yet fully understood the concept of consciousness in biological subjects leaving about implementation or simulation in machines. Most scientists believe that consciousness is intrinsically a trait of biological organisms and can not be replicated in machines. While few believe that feelings and emotions can also be broken down in algorithms to insert into a machine.
Till now these beliefs are only speculative and most likely would remain always be speculation. The far most advanced AI that existed or would exist in the near future could only be processing data at a much faster speed to generate responses in terms of verbal, written or action. But all their behaviour will only be a rearrangement of already existing human data. Machines don’t matter how much they are advanced can not think independently.
Now there is a huge difference between learning and thinking. A machine can learn at a far greater level than humans but can not think at all. To understand the difference let’s take an example. Suppose in class a teacher is teaching students some maths formulas and how to implement them. Now if students after the process, teaching and practice can implement these formulas it will be called learning.
After learning they can solve problems based on these formulas that’s what a machine can do far better than humans. But let’s go to that class again and assume a brilliant student stands up and cross-questions about figuring out some limitations of the formula or highlighting the complexity and proposing a simpler method to solve these problems. That is called thinking and a machine can never do that. It can never cross-question to propose something new.
Now if you think that someday robots or machines become self-aware and will declare war against humans or make humans inferior that is not going to happen.
But there is one big threat that we don't really talk about
The real threat to humanity will be humans at least for a few more hundred years if they survive. AI is unable to possess any threat unless it meets with the evil of humanity. These tools can be used against the privacy of people, to spread misinformation, to rage war, to infiltrate systems and so on. Some of these have already been practised by some organisations, institutions and countries.
Every time when we as a society will face this threat it will be pre-planned and conspirated. However, there is something else that is also a bigger threat that will appear to us and that is inequality. There is still a huge percentage of the population that cannot access the internet, or computer or is complete digital illiterate.
With the rapid advent of AI technologies, we won’t have enough time and resources to make us capable of adapting AI and related technologies. If AI grew rapidly as it seems there would be a new class created of people who lack access to these technologies. Power and resources will be occupied by only a few people and the rest of them will suffer.
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