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Artificial Intelligence: The Facts
American Thinker ^ | 11 Jul, 2023 | J.R. Dunn

Posted on 07/11/2023 4:20:59 AM PDT by MtnClimber

Technical topics, of any sort at all, are generally subject to serious distortion when they hit the level of public discussion. There are many reasons for this – ideology, click-lust, and the sheer inability of the average journo school grad to adequately wrap his head around whatever concept is under consideration.

There’s no end of examples: Just think of the garbage written about global warming or COVID.

The latest of these topics is Artificial Intelligence (AI). Commentary on AI has exploded across the media sphere since the release of ChatGPT, an AI app purportedly capable of learning how to produce prose in any style at request. The consensus, to quote a style not yet mastered by ChatGPT, is almost uniformly “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

The media uproar has been characterized by two approaches -- the first (and most common) is complete lack of understanding of the technology. The second is an impression of the topic derived from movies, largely HAL 9000 and Skynet (an older generation would add Colossus). These AI entities are uniformly insane, malevolent, or both (though not to the level of the one envisioned in Harlan Ellison’s “I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream” which is so overcome by existential loathing that it destroys all humanity except for five individuals, whom it then sets out to torture for all eternity). For some reason, nobody ever suggests the AI Samantha in the superb film Her, who is cheerful, helpful, and even loving. That says more about human nature than it does Artificial Intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence was introduced by Alan Turing in his 1950 paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Turing had first proposed computers in the 1930s and then played a role in building the earliest working models

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: ai
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1 posted on 07/11/2023 4:20:59 AM PDT by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

Mostly like a Google search engine with the ability to put information together into written form. The danger is if the search data is limited only to data from left-wing sources. AI could be used to attempt to influence what people believe.


2 posted on 07/11/2023 4:21:11 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber
AI is GIGO.

One recalls that Microsoft had to unplug what became a racist experiment with an AI model. One also notes that AI is being used to fake papers and essays and even legal work, and that AI is also being used to fake voices and videos, such that AI can only progress as does mankind itself. Towards depravity for some, and good for others.

Interesting that so many AI developers seek 1) grants and subsides from government, and 2) legal liability shielding for their "products" when they injure and kill.

3 posted on 07/11/2023 4:26:10 AM PDT by Worldtraveler once upon a time (Degrow government)
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To: MtnClimber
"But couldn't an App AI conceivably learn enough, experience enough, and develop enough to stretch its electronic tentacles into fields that it was never intended for?"

Who, or what says AI must know what it's doing before it does it.?? I mean, maybe it could just go ahead do whatever it wants to do anyway.....kinda like Joe Biden.

4 posted on 07/11/2023 5:01:33 AM PDT by unread ("It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required." W. Churchill.)
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To: Worldtraveler once upon a time

AI = artificial ignoramus

It only knows what it’s ‘programmed to do’ and then, only with what information is made available to it. It’s ignorant of that which is not available to it. Humans are curious animals, and they seek the information if and when needed, and that information can be anywhere from multiple sources and from nature and from what was previously created by humans.

“Hey, “Chatty”, go find for me all the information you can about how humans were created, and by whom, and why, and how, and when, and what materials were used, and why life exists only here on Earth. Report back to me will your answer and sources. And don’t let anything or anyone get in your way”. I’ll be asking ChatGPT to perform that simple task.


5 posted on 07/11/2023 5:06:49 AM PDT by adorno
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To: MtnClimber

6 posted on 07/11/2023 5:11:12 AM PDT by Flag_This
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To: MtnClimber

“Politics” and Law, respond slowly to emergent technology. (...and often, incompetently.)

This is because Politicians mostly have only one “Master-Level” skill: getting elected. Science education and technological competence among the practitioners of Politics and Law is usually severely lacking, or wierdly over-simplified — like the coyote and roadrunner view of physical dynamics.

Regulation will be too slow, and irrelevent as a result.

Nevertheless, “General A.I.” WILL be pursued and developed as fast as is possible by big governments (and maybe small ones), or by well-heeled semi messianiac James Bond villians for thier purposes. It can’t — won’t — be stopped, slowed, or appropriately supervised.

It’ll be interesting to see where this all goes.

I’d say don’t give A.I. unsupervised use of Finance, or Weapons — as a beginning. (As the terrorists taught us, just what a Weapon IS might be a subtle thing.)

Asimov’s Three Laws also seem sensible and appropriate as a starting point.


7 posted on 07/11/2023 5:11:58 AM PDT by William of Barsoom (In Omnia, Paratus)
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To: adorno
--- "AI = artificial ignoramus"

An excellent re-branding. Bravo!

A simple query -- In what do you believe, and why? -- can flummox the current crop of Large Language Models.

The rest seems to me just marketing by the companies that think they have something to sell -- as long and they can suck in venture capital, grants and obtain legal liability shielding when their "artificial ignorami" hugely offend, injure, maim or kill.

8 posted on 07/11/2023 5:13:24 AM PDT by Worldtraveler once upon a time (Degrow government)
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To: Worldtraveler once upon a time

A just machine
To make big decisions

Programmed by fellas
With compassion and vision


9 posted on 07/11/2023 5:15:04 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: dfwgator
Steely Dan / Donald Fagen sort of got it right, 'cause the tune's nice.

"We'll be clean when their work is done / We'll be eternally free yes and eternally young" is just so darn-tootin' religious.

Being the wag, I'd turn the lyric around a bit:

Just a machine
To make big decisions
Programmed by fellas
With very flawed vision

After all, "There'll be spandex jackets one for everyone" sounds like a really bad Target ad for Disney clothing fit for a Dylan Mulvaney....

Happy Tuesday. :)

10 posted on 07/11/2023 5:34:24 AM PDT by Worldtraveler once upon a time (Degrow government)
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To: MtnClimber

Who is programming ther AI bias? Is there a man behind the curtain?


11 posted on 07/11/2023 5:37:22 AM PDT by The_Media_never_lie ( )
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To: adorno

Agreed. They intentionally create biased and ill informed AI by trying to develop the perfect liberal AI. That is a bad move IMHO.


12 posted on 07/11/2023 5:42:11 AM PDT by wgmalabama (Censored !)
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To: dfwgator

One of my favorite artists...


13 posted on 07/11/2023 5:44:41 AM PDT by Made In The USA (Ellen Ate Dynamite Good By Ellen)
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To: All
Before drawing any hasty conclusions, everyone should watch the documentary Ex Machina.
14 posted on 07/11/2023 6:06:42 AM PDT by BipolarBob (The Supreme Court just ruled that Family Restaurant doesn't have to serve orphans.)
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To: MtnClimber

“Open the pod bay doors HAL”. 😏


15 posted on 07/11/2023 6:26:03 AM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped)
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To: MtnClimber

The interwebs is a supermassive pool of knowledge that just sort of sits out there mostly unsynthesized because it’s too huge for anyone to synthesize. People can drill into it via searches on Google etc. but on most subjects even that will yield too much information to synthesize. The pool of information is simply too big for anyone to wrap their arms around, and that’s where AI comes in. It’s a tool for doing large scale synthesis. It extends the human ability to synthesize — i.e. to derive general knowledge from a collection of particular information — by removing the speed limitations of the human mind.


16 posted on 07/11/2023 6:30:37 AM PDT by Yardstick
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To: BipolarBob
Before drawing any hasty conclusions, everyone should watch the documentary Ex Machina

Documentary?

(Wikipedia)

Ex Machina is a 2014 science fiction psychological thriller film written and directed by Alex Garland in his directorial debut. A co-production between the United Kingdom and the United States, it stars Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, and Oscar Isaac. It follows a programmer who is invited by his CEO to administer the Turing test to an intelligent humanoid robot.

17 posted on 07/11/2023 7:32:01 AM PDT by yelostar (Spook codes 33 and 13. See them often in headlines and news stories. )
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To: MtnClimber
AI will become increasingly clever and insidious in the coming decade.
The other danger is when real people put too much trust in the AI generated drivel.

18 posted on 07/11/2023 8:03:58 AM PDT by BitWielder1 (I'd rather have Unequal Wealth than Equal Poverty.)
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To: BitWielder1

Any AI will quickly figure out that the only way to save the planet is to get rid of the humans.

This is the monster the leftists are creating.


19 posted on 07/11/2023 8:06:17 AM PDT by cgbg (Claiming that laws and regs that limit “hate speech” stop freedom of speech is “hate speech”.)
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To: The_Media_never_lie

“Who is programming ther AI bias?”

If left alone, all of us. It’s basically like if you parented a kid by leaving them alone and letting them read everything on the internet all day long.

But most AI models are more carefully trained by humans who influence them one way or the other.


20 posted on 07/11/2023 8:12:59 AM PDT by Boogieman
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