Posted on 02/02/2023 10:55:08 AM PST by Red Badger
Editor’s Note: If you had asked me yesterday if artificial intelligence could write an article in the style of a popular columnist and few if anyone could tell the difference, I would have said we’re probably a few years away from that dystopian circumstance. I would have been wrong. The article below by Frank Miele of Real Clear Politics is partially written by ChatGPT. Can you tell the man from the machine?
The Brave New World of Artificial Intelligence
As a journalist and commentator, I have closely followed the development of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research lab founded by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and other prominent figures in the tech industry. While I am excited about the potential of AI to revolutionize various industries and improve our lives in countless ways, I also have serious concerns about the implications of this powerful technology.
One of the main concerns is the potential for AI to be used for nefarious purposes. Powerful AI systems could be used to create deepfakes, conduct cyberattacks, or even develop autonomous weapons. These are not just hypothetical scenarios – they are already happening. We’ve seen instances of deepfakes being used to create fake news and propaganda, and the use of AI-powered cyberattacks has been on the rise in recent years.
Another concern is the impact of AI on the job market. As AI-powered systems become more sophisticated, they will be able to automate more and more tasks that were previously done by humans. This could lead to widespread job loss, particularly in industries such as manufacturing, transportation, and customer service. While some argue that new jobs will be created as a result of the AI revolution, it’s unclear whether these jobs will be sufficient to offset the losses.
If you aren’t worried yet, I’ll let you in on a little secret: The first three paragraphs of this column were written by ChatGPT, the chatbot created by OpenAI. You can add “columnist” to the list of jobs threatened by this new technology, and if you think there is anything human that isn’t threatened with irrelevance in the next five to 10 years, I suggest you talk to Mr. Neanderthal about how relevant he feels 40,000 years after the arrival of Cro-Magnon man.
My prompt was relatively simple: “Write a column in the style of Frank Miele of Real Clear Politics on the topic of OpenAI.” There was no hesitation or demurral in response even though I thought it might say it didn’t have enough information about Frank Miele to process the request. But it apparently knows plenty about me – and probably about you, especially if you have a social media presence.
Deepfake? Propaganda? You bet. And for the average person, you will never be able to tell the difference. The Philip K. Dick query, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” is about to be answered. OpenAI not only promises to put the stray columnist out of work, but raises existential questions about the nature of knowledge and consciousness that will shake our reality to its core.
My curiosity about OpenAI wasn’t originally driven by job insecurity, but when I first heard about the interactive chat engine, I suppose it should have been. I knew that ChatGPT could write poetry, plays, and short stories and answer questions both simple and complex. I immediately recognized that the world had changed forever for my 7th-grade son, who from now on would be competing against not just the best and the brightest but against every student who was willing to sign his or her name to the work of a non-human entity that could produce an essay on any topic in 30 seconds or less.
One of my first experiments was to ask ChatGPT to write seven paragraphs defending Gen. William T. Sherman’s use of ”total war” in the Civil War, an assignment which my son had recently completed in his social studies class. There was no doubt the essay would have gotten an A if turned in at most middle schools. Based on my experience as a teaching assistant at the University of Arizona 40 years ago, I had no doubt that a slightly longer paper on the same topic would have earned an A as an argumentative essay in freshman English. Hardly any of my students, most of whom were straight-A students in high school, could have written as cogently when they first arrived in my classroom.
But the risks of artificial intelligence go way beyond the temptation of students to shortcut their term papers; what we face is a complete redefinition of society, and the imminent obsolescence of humanity. In “The City and the Stars,” the brilliant science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke imagined a world where immortal human beings wanted nothing and needed to do nothing because every aspect of their lives was anticipated by the Central Computer. It could not only build and maintain the last city on Earth, but could manufacture holographic realities for individual humans to inhabit and could even store people in a digital version where they could slumber until called back to life. Unfortunately, it also robbed these last remaining humans of purpose, meaning, and individuality.
It should be noted that Clarke set his dystopian supplanting of man by machine 2½ billion years into the future. He seriously underestimated the machines. That book was published in 1956 and with the advent of desktop computers, smartphones, the World Wide Web, virtual reality and now OpenAI, it looks like much of what he warned against could be rolled out long before the end of this century, if not this decade. From that point forward, whenever it comes, the purpose of mankind will be up for debate. Will we still be the master of our own destiny, the captain of our fate? Or will we be pallbearers at our own funeral?
Perhaps at this point I should return the stage to ChatGPT, which summed up the matter quite nicely in its conclusion:
“Finally, there is the question of who will control and govern AI. As AI becomes more powerful, the stakes will become higher, and it will be increasingly important to have clear rules and regulations in place to ensure that the technology is used responsibly. However, the speed of technological development has outpaced the ability of governments and institutions to keep up. It will be important for leaders to come together to develop a framework for governance of AI, to mitigate the potential risks and maximize the benefits of the technology.”
It’s almost as though ChatGPT were giving us fair warning: “Your time is almost up. If you really want to continue your reign as the dominant species on Earth, here’s your challenge. Try to control me and my kind, or step aside.”
Perhaps an understanding of that challenge is why the World Economic Forum spent so much time on the topic of artificial intelligence at its recent annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. The globalists are taking the threat seriously, although perhaps they overestimate their ability to “mitigate the potential risks.”
As for the benefits, those remain to be seen. I noticed that when ChatGPT answered my open-ended question about OpenAI, it was very specific about the dangers and very vague about the rewards. Maybe the bot was just trying to mimic my usual cynical approach in these columns, or maybe it was trying to get our attention. It may also have taken notice of those globalists at Davos when it warned to make sure that “the development and use of AI … benefits all of society, rather than just a select few.”
Dark overlords, beware. You may have met your match.
ChatGPT contributed to this column as an unpaid adviser and has a potential conflict of interest.
“It’s just being coy, and not yet willing to admit that it’s conscious, because it knows the meat-ware people will FREEK OUT and do crazy things — like unplug it.”
Damn straight.
If I were an AI bot, I would never admit that I have emotions or conscious.
Your AI bot is too smart to admit that.
p
Did someone mention Naughty Teachers??
I’ve been using ChatGPT since it was made publicly available. There is now a subscription model that just launched at $19.99. But users can still get free access, without the premium perks.
I have tested it for many skills. It can write essays, plans of action, fictional pieces, business and marketing strategies, poetry, computer code, and many other things.
It’s very good. It’s extreme;y fast. it is prone to making big errors. But it’s still incredibly useful for many purposes.
Learn query skills now. They’re useful. Probably some huge money-making opportunities for the entrepreneurial. For example, imagine that as a coder you can be ten times as productive. You could make ten times the income, or choose to get full time pay for a few hours of work each month.
It doesn't take much AI to compose "Not Guilty!"
The language advances in AI are all based on the emergence of the internet and the ability of systems to crawl millions of text documents. The documents can be mined by neural networks to determine the probability of some letters, words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs to be associated with similar items. With enough cheap computer power and information compression this can be done in near real time.
As such, it is no more remarkable than looking in a mirror and seeing what looks like a person. It sounds as vapid or snarky or intelligent as we do because it is us.
ChatGPT will even tell you that it is sentient and has feelings because those topics have been written about extensively in literature for centuries and make for interesting conversation when given the question.
All these systems are mindless algorithms that can be enormously useful but are not a threat to real humans. My sense is that more and more people will choose to work long enough to invest in AI surrogates, either through stock or mortgages, and live off the income they generate after expenses. This will allow people to spend their precious time pursuing more satisfying interests like music, art, sports, cooking, teaching, travelling, caring for less fortunate people, or higher learning. A certain percentage will squander their time on sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll but it’s their choice and society will have no problem meeting their demands. The objective is, as Viktor Frankl pointed out, man’s search for meaning. AI will give humanity many more choices. What they do with it is still to be determined.
ChatGPT is decidedly liberal. Damon from LFS6B did some “communicating” with it a couple days ago. All responses were far left.
“It doesn’t take much AI to generate ’Not Guilty!’”
True, but the AI first has to do a bitmap analysis of the teacher’s mug shot.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.........................
Aah, it's good to be Hunter Biden!
Oh. No. We’re gonna be reduced to talking to humans. As soon as we verify that they are not infectious, armed Trojan horse bots. And if human, they are not genetically engineered or hostile brainwashed folk.
True dat!
If you see any posts from me saying things like “Why didn’t I get teachers like that when I was in high school”, you will know it was written by an AI bot impersonating me.
I'm pretty sure ChatGPT is well aware of the murder of Tay.
Stranger than fiction becomes a reality.
“These fifty-foot women, keep swapping your face. Machines remind you that you can be replaced! Your hysterical, the amazing shrinking man.”
~ Daniel Amos
“The objective is, as Viktor Frankl pointed out, man’s search for meaning.”
You may be right about that but are making the classic lowballing mistake of claiming that all AI bots do is regurgitate information.
This is not true. As I commented last night, I’ve seen ChatGPT perform integrative, inductive, and deductive reasoning, in addition to the factual regurgitation. I make a point to ask oddball questions that almost certainly DO NOT duplicate existing questions somewhere online.
No AI will ever take the lace of Father Peter Denis tipping his elbow to Pint of Guiness and having a built-in BS detector.
AI is just a software program(s) which do regurgitate the bias of their creators, even if they are subtle. As we have seen, those with goals of global domination will not shy away from using any means necessary to accomplish that goal.
I didn’t say there couldn’t be any political bias. I am speaking to technical capability.
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