AI Seems Scary, but it Will Likely do More Good Than Bad
Just venting my personal opinions all over this post, which few if any people will see anyway. Call it organizing my thoughts I guess?
AI is here to stay, and that's not a bad thing, or at least it doesn't have to be. Back in the day there were doomsayers, many of them well known and respected personalities, all over the place touting the dangers of the Internet and you know what? They weren't entirely wrong. They were also more wrong than right. So-called experts have an unfortunate tendency to make wrong predictions about the future, especially in regards to emerging and novel technologies. A couple of centuries ago, there were publications on expert opinions about how it wouldn't be possible to travel at high speed (like 50kph+) because it would lead to asphyxia.
The internet is a modern mainstay, nearly as important as electricity. Without it, much of what we count on day to day will grind to a halt. Putting aside personal devices like desktops, tablets, etc. that are usually internet-connected, there are a lot of other things that rely on it. Credit card machines are internet connected and without it our increasingly cash-less society will grind to a near halt. Many companies, especially larger ones, need to 'check in' with some central sever somewhere to function effectively. That'd be gone too. A lot of information will be lost outright, or at least isolated where it isn't terribly useful. The impact of internet on both personal and business productivity is in the trillions per year. It saves time, sometimes a lot of it, and 'time is money', as they say. This is to say nothing of how much power it puts in the hands of the average person with internet access. It can empower people to find better opportunities, and advocate for themselves. It is a jumping point for learning new skills, often for free.
I see AI as much the same. If you consider its growth and accessibility, it is a lot like the internet. At first it was used mainly by governments, corporations, and in research. Institutions, in other words. The internet back in the day was mostly used by the same groups. So at first it was mainly the people that work at these places that experienced it. Then enthusiast tech-heads started getting their hands on it for personal use, experimenting with what it can do. Then there was limited public access in the form of AI assistants like Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, Bixby, etc. Those could be sort of useful, sometimes. Now we're at the point where it's getting better, and at an increasing pace. It has 'blown up' with the introduction of Chat-GPT and the like. Sure, it's still awkward, and it can be abused, but the same is true of the internet. There will always be those that abuse useful tools to exploit others and cause harm and mayhem for either personal gain, to further their extreme goals, or just to watch the world burn. Protections will evolve to try and keep pace, though they won't be perfect, and the average person will have to learn to take some pains to protect themselves as well.
And yes, AI is going to take jobs away and that will cause a lot of people problems, and while that is unfortunate it is also perfectly normal for new technologies. With that change comes new opportunities. The tools will be there for you to use to your advantage, just like the internet.
Or maybe you'll just amuse yourself by trying to get your AI to do something lewd. Probably that.
The main problem I see in future isn't the singularity. No, I'm worried that countries will fail to make appropriate policy changes to reflect the increasing automation that AI and robotics technology together, eliminating most menial labour whether it's manual or data-processing related. We could end up with a large percentage of the population that can't find work, let alone work that pays all their bills. With the increasing productive capacity of countries it should make it very much possible to sustain the population as a whole even if a large percentage aren't producing any work. It would simply not be sane to let society proceed down a path of dystopia, as the burden of a large and dissatisfied homeless and overworked population would result in civil unrest and possible violence, and more to the point such a society would be costly. It is literally cheaper to provide a basic level of housing and resources to someone who would otherwise be homeless, than it would be to deal with a homeless population.
Similarly, I can't see a world where a large fraction of the population having no purchasing power would be good for international trade. If much of the population of every country, including the wealthy ones, have no purchasing power, trade of finished consumer goods like electronics, processed foods, media, clothing, etc. would stagnate. It seems it would be more healthy to have some surplus wealth circulating through the population to keep both the country, and international trade of goods, healthy.
I don't know, it just seems like the future will become a policy choice between 'dystopia' and 'increased free time', all because of the near elimination of unskilled and low-skilled work. Low wage and low skilled workers are already prone to being treated like garbage that doesn't deserve to make enough to live on, and unless policy changes to match the times, this will only get worse.
tl;dr - There will definitely be some growing pains with AI, but it doesn't have to end in an 'AI Destroys Humanity' scenario, and likely won't. Policy changes not being made to reflect a rapidly diminishing need for menial labour is a far more pressing concern, in my mind.
blakekathryn
2087
annaxmalina
jacobvanloon
turnnoffyourmind
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