A.I. Sucks

Artificial Intelligence. To me, that is an oxymoron. Is what is artificial truly intelligent? Predictive algorithms, when applied to complex socio-cultural contexts, can fail or produce unintended consequences.

When I want a cover photo, I always try to go with a real one. It could be a photo that I've taken, drawn, or painted. It could be from a family member or friend. It could be from Unsplash or Pexels. If I can't find just the right one, I will use ChatGPT. For this piece, I did it intentionally. I actually like that they show ChatGPT in the lower right. That didn't used to be the case.

Incidentally, I had doctored a photo of my late husband for use with a different piece. He ended up front and center in this one without my say so.

AI is everywhere. Arts, music, writing, even the medical field.

Artists, musicians, and writers have often struggled throughout history. It's been the few who broke through and made it big. Now, the competition has gotten a whole lot more complex.

Soon, it will be very difficult to tell if any art, music, poem, or story was produced with or assisted by the use of AI.

My cousin, Anthony and I were chatting about a month and a half ago. We're both musicians and lyricists. I told him I have a song I've been working on. I sent him the lyrics. He asked me just a few questions. In about five minutes, he shared an AI version of my song that I would never have produced on my own. I was both impressed and frightened. I have my song my way in my head. He made it something entirely valid but not mine. I don't have the app that he used, so I can't open it or share it now. I suppose that's a shame and a blessing.

Automotive AI has been responsible for at least 25 deaths because human errors in operation get replaced by coding errors; because probabilistic estimates do not approximate judgment under uncertainty; because maintaining AI is going to be as important as creating it, and we're not there yet.

What's next, AI doctors? No thanks.

When I Googled "Problems with AI" for this piece, I got a very telling article, from which I was taking notes. I thought, "This is good stuff!" I was curious as to the source, and this is what I read: "This summary was generated using AI based on multiple online sources." Unbelievable!

I did manage to track down two of the sources, which are listed below.

The first article, written by Rina Diane Caballar, cited 10 concerns for AI: bias, cybersecurity threats, data privacy issues, environmental harm, existential risks, intellectual property infringement, job losses, accountability issues, lack of transparency, and misinformation/manipulation.

Many of these problems are easy to predict. I did not anticipate the environment harm, so I'll delve into that topic a bit.

Rina states:

One study estimates that training a single natural language processing model emits over 600,000 pounds of carbon dioxide; nearly 5 times the average emissions of a car over its lifetime.

That's alarming in itself. She went on to add that these systems run hot, requiring considerable water for cooling down.

We're already killing our planet, so let's just expedite it with AI.

The second article broached many of the same topics, but it added a section on autonomous weapons powered by AI. Yeah, let's just blow ourselves up before we kill the planet environmentally.

Here's a quote from that article:

If any major military power pushes ahead with AI weapon development, a global arms race is virtually inevitable, and the endpoint of this technological trajectory is obvious: autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow.

So now, a tech cold war could take place when some country, billionaire, or hacker gets power hungry. I'm glad that I probably won't be around to see that. At least our end would be swift, I suppose.

This article also included a section on mental deterioration and psychological harm, inferencing brain rot and distorted reality. This does not bode well for the future of humanity.

As for the potential physical harm, most of us spend way too much time in front of a computer as it is. AI is becoming too addictive.

The bottom line is that AI is going to need some serious mitigation and control. Who's going to do that? Governments? Probably, and probably not very well. Hopefully, they won't be assisted by a bunch of AI robots.

In my opinion, if we bow to AI, it's like admitting our own intelligence isn't enough.

Get out there and use your brain!

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Sources:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/self-driving-cars-2662494269

https://www.ibm.com/think/insights/10-ai-dangers-and-risks-and-how-to-manage-them

https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/risks-of-artificial-intelligence