Man-Machine Is AI a threat to humankind?

Second Summer

Second Summer

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That is what Elon Musk is saying.
https://twitter.com/x/status/896166762361704450

Whereas Mark Zuckerberg thinks he's scaremongering:
“I have pretty strong opinions on this. I am optimistic. And I think people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios – I just, I don’t understand it. It’s really negative and in some ways I actually think it is pretty irresponsible.”
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Killer robots? Musk and Zuckerberg escalate row over dangers of AI (July 25., 2017)

Where do you stand on this issue?
 
Things are happening in this space. Back when I started this thread, AI "takeover" seemed more like a theoretical threat. Now it seems like it's already started (e.g. language translators are often replaced by software/AI), and we might be only a few years away from large-scale AI takeover of many other job types. Eventually, AI could replace humans in most professional roles. Companies will be forced to adopt this new technology or else they will lose out to those who do adopt it, as there are enormous cost savings in doing away with humans.

Let me give you a few technology examples I've come across personally.

This drawing was generated by Midjourney AI. The creator simply described the scene in words, and the AI generated the drawing:
RetroFun.PL (@RetroFunPL@8bit.red)

Then there is ChatGPT which is a "language model" developed by OpenAI and can be used to build chatbots and similar apps. This has created headlines world-wide recently, amongst other things for being used to cheat on exams. It can answer pretty much any question, although not always correctly, but most of the time it's really quite impressive, and honestly - scary! You can sign up and try it yourself at:

I don't know if true, but the AI technology is said to get exponentially better every year. It certainly has come a long way.

In general, I doubt most people have any idea whatsoever what's coming, and the scale of societal upheaval it will cause. As usual, we can not expect politicians / law makers to be proactive. They will only start taking this seriously once their voters start complaining when they're made redundant.
 
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Veganite said:
I found this video quite interesting.

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Thanks! That was somewhat comforting to hear. I still think AIs in the workplace will take over a lot of jobs and lead to redundancies, even if AIs can't be creative and can't write better AIs that will write better AIs ... and so forth. But maybe it won't affect quite as many job types as I feared, or happen quite as fast.

The other thing to remember is that while AIs can be very clever, they need to be combined with robotics to be able to do manual jobs. Well, we have probably all seen the Boston Dynamics robot animals, which are very impressive pieces of technology. But I think we are still a long way away from robotic plumbers or house builders that can fully replace their human counterparts. But maybe killer robots to replace soldiers are not too far fetched? It's an evolving field, who knows what tomorrow might bring ...
 
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Definitely. They would take over and it would be very bad for us.
 
The ChatGBT scares me. It just takes the human factor out of writing, and I fear an even greater erosion of creativity overall, not to mention taking people’s jobs away. Will this replace grant writers, fiction writers, PR people? How then do those people earn a living? We may need some type of universal basic income to help people squeezed out of jobs because of AI, especially older workers who may not be able to learn new jobs or because companies don’t want to pay older workers.
 
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PTree15 said:
We may need some type of universal basic income to help people squeezed out of jobs because of AI, especially older workers who may not be able to learn new jobs or because companies don’t want to pay older workers.
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Yes. I was thinking we can also invest our savings in AI company stocks. If you can't beat them, join them ...
 
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AI, if fully implemented, would impact all age groups. If jobs go away, it doesn't matter if workers are young or old. No one of any age can do them. It remains to be seen whether AI will replace jobs or merely "adjust" them, but I think it has the potential to eliminate a whole lot of jobs. Automation has a long history and AI seems like the "next generation." Back in the 1920s and 1930s, car washes used to have people in them who washed the cars. They were replaced with machines. Not to mention many laundromats, manufacturing, and television studios. Even "computer" used to be a job description for a person who did calculations. That one obviously went as well. I don't know where it will lead, but I hope we're not on a collision course with another massive economic overhaul like the transition from agriculture to industry that happened during the early-mid 19th century. Opinions on AI are all over the board. Some say it's the end of humanity. Others say it won't work out the way many think. Who's right? Who knows?
 
I have been playing with AI image creation machines and I am now convinced that you literally should not believe any photos that you see online. You could easily spread any propaganda you want to and support it with a "photo." It even creates hands with the correct number of fingers these days. My biggest fear isn't that the machines would take over because that requires motive which requires consciousness and emotion. My biggest fear is the amount of trust people are putting into these machines. People have died on the roads already because of self-driven cars but the optimists are hand-waving it away as if people's lives are secondary to "advancement." It's people that I find scary!
 
To be fair, looking at the first post in this thread, which is from 2017, mainly reminds me that there was a time when Elmo was actually considered intelligent. How time flies!
 
Brian W said:
I have been playing with AI image creation machines and I am now convinced that you literally should not believe any photos that you see online. You could easily spread any propaganda you want to and support it with a "photo." It even creates hands with the correct number of fingers these days. My biggest fear isn't that the machines would take over because that requires motive which requires consciousness and emotion. My biggest fear is the amount of trust people are putting into these machines. People have died on the roads already because of self-driven cars but the optimists are hand-waving it away as if people's lives are secondary to "advancement." It's people that I find scary!
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I think you are somewhat overreacting.
We have had photoshop for years. AI just makes it easier. For years there have been lying photographs. I think it comes down to what it has always come down to: What is the source? If the source is Donald Trump - rest assured it's fake. If the source is the NYT, rest assured it's true.

Probably the biggest concern is what people decide to believe. Fact checking, skepticism are severely lacking in the typical news consumer. Now they are skills that are being taught in some classrooms. ( I can't remember what they call it - something like information literacy.) Unfortunetly most teenagers get their news from TikTok or Facebook or Instagram or YouTube. Instead of the NYT or the Washington Post.

Those places that are teaching it are finding it makes significant differences.

In one study they tested peoples real knowledge of the news. those who got their news from Fox got very low scores. but the good news is during the study they asked the paricipants who watched Fox to stop. Their score started to rise significantly in just a few weeks.

As far as driver are cars, I think eventually robots are going to way safer than people. Heck they might already be. Robots don't get tired or distracted or drunk. Driverless cars were involved in 11 fatal crashes last year There were 100 people killed in regular cars .... yesterday.

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There was a novel (or was it a short story) that I read many years ago. Probably written in the 50s, maybe an Amazing Story. Anyway the story did not get into the details or the nuts and bolts but AI and robotics has eliminated almost all jobs. Everyone got a basic income. In the book everyone seemed really happy with all their leisure time. But there was one guy left working. He was basically a trouble shooter for anything that went wrong. In the book everything is fine until it's not. It turns out that one guy is unhappy and he is messing things up.

I'll have to post something on reddit and see if anyone knows this story.
 
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Lou said:
There was a novel (or was it a short story) that I read many years ago. Probably written in the 50s, maybe an Amazing Story. Anyway the story did not get into the details or the nuts and bolts but AI and robotics has eliminated almost all jobs. Everyone got a basic income. In the book everyone seemed really happy with all their leisure time. But there was one guy left working. He was basically a trouble shooter for anything that went wrong. In the book everything is fine until it's not. It turns out that one guy is unhappy and he is messing things up.

I'll have to post something on reddit and see if anyone knows this story.
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That sounds like something you would find in a Philip K. Dick story...
 
Lou said:
If the source is the NYT, rest assured it's true.
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I don't know the media landscape over there particularly well, but it was my understanding that although the NYT is a respectable newspaper and probably would not be serving outright lies, they are still deeply entangled with the Democratic party, so I would still take their news articles with at least a small pinch of salt.

And in fact, I would think most news sources have some kind of bias. The important thing is to be aware of the particular bias of whatever news source you are consuming.
 
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Second Summer said:
I don't know the media landscape over there particularly well, but it was my understanding that although the NYT is a respectable newspaper and probably would not be serving outright lies, they are still deeply entangled with the Democratic party, so I would still take their news articles with at least a small pinch of salt.
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I would not characterize them that way. but I suppose I'm biased left too.
In the TV show the Newsroom there is a staff meeting about the concept about fair and unbiased reporting. And one of the guys says, wait if we report on some Republican BS does that mean we have to find some Democratic BS to report on?
So if a media outlet doesn't do that - does that make them biased? Not in my book

Second Summer said:
And in fact, I would think most news sources have some kind of bias. The important thing is to be aware of the particular bias of whatever news source you are consuming.
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Yes. and actually we have talked about this here on the forum before and someone posted this helpful chart

adfontesmedia.com

Interactive Media Bias Chart | Ad Fontes Media

The Interactive Media Bias Chart offers the ability to search from among the thousands of rated web/print, TV and podcast sources.
adfontesmedia.com adfontesmedia.com
 
Lou said:
I think you are somewhat overreacting.
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No I am not. AI is far more than Photoshop. I have been in different circles to you and I have seen some of the dangers. Anybody with an axe to grind could easily destroy somebody's life with a fake photograph. People have been killed because of AI driven cars. People are using Chat GPT instead of genuine research to find facts that could have repercussions in ethical and political debates. Paedophiles are creating child abuse images to fuel their social circles. How far do you want it to go before you accept that my reaction is entirely in perspective?
 
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