Are we preparing our own deathbed?
The most preferred answer for the question “Which course do you want to study in college?” comes out to be Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. From the first formulation of the concept in 1955 to todays 21st Century, This topic has experienced a massive growth fueled by the ever growing technology. A majority of students are fascinated by AI and want to study it and build AI robots like Sophia. We have been the victim of a high scale growth in AI from the first conceptualization to the availability of AI in handy smartphones. Who could have thought our mobile phones would be smart enough to guess what we want and enable us to be dependent on them. But this is the reality with much more to be explored.
“My way is to divide half a sheet of paper by a line into two columns; writing over the one Pro and over the other Con. Then during three or four days’ consideration, I put down under the different heads short hints of the different motives, that at different time occur to me, for or against the measure. When I have thus got them altogether in one view, I endeavor to estimate their respective weights; and where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I strike them both out. If I judge some two reasons con equal to some three reasons pro, I strike out five; and thus proceeding, I find where the balance lies; and if after a day or two of further consideration, nothing new that is of importance occurs on either side, I come to a determination accordingly.”- Quotes Benjamin Franklin. This pulls out the importance of having the quest to search for the cons and then further proceeding with relevant amount of measures to reduce the negative impact.
But on the journey of this exponential technological growth no one tends to consider the negative impact and how it can be a potential threat to the human race. Everything comes with two possibilities and no one can completely ignore the negative part. Artificial intelligence has no such exceptions and has huge potential threat in future.
In an interview between Jack Ma,(Chinese business magnate, investor and philanthropist) and Elon Musk(founder, CEO, CTO and chief designer of SpaceX and Tesla) on 29th August, 2020 at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai,(https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49508091) the topic of ignorance of potential threat of Artificial Intelligence was brought up and we saw how Elon Musk addressed the issue and presented points in support of this issue. Jack Ma seemed to be facetious about this part and mocked on what Elon Musk said. But if we listen carefully and interpret what Musk said, we can clearly feel how dangerous is AI turning and how the human race is in a threat to be ruled and controlled by robots.
This might seem too childish and like a story but lets go through the facts to understand it better.
- AI is a such a technology that is about developing thinking abilities in computers. So if computers are made smart enough, they can be more efficient than humans in any field of work and thus will be considered more cost efficient.
- Humans will loose jobs in mass and will be rendered jobless.
- They will only be necessary to initiate a machine which will then reprogram the others eradicating human dependence of machines.
As per the words of Elon Musk, “AI will make jobs kind of pointless. Probably the last job that will remain will be writing AI, and then eventually, the AI will just write its own software.” He added that there was a risk that human civilization could come to an end and ultimately be seen as a staging post for a superior type of life. “You could sort of think of humanity as a biological boot loader for digital super-intelligence,” Musk explained.
“A boot loader is… sort of like the minimal bit of code necessary for a computer to start.”
So we will left with no job and the whole things could be done by computers itself. The only thing we will be needed for is to write the basic driver code and then it will be taken over by computers. This is a huge thing to consider as this will bring a lot of problems and boom the unemployed people around the globe. How will they survive? What will be the sources of income? Can computer override a possibility?
These are some serious questions which needs to be answered before pacing in the long run towards the modern AI dominated world.
Jack Ma was however of a different opinion and told, “Don’t worry about the machines , For sure, we should understand one thing: that man can never make another man. A computer is a computer. A computer is just a toy. Man cannot even make a mosquito. So, we should have a confidence. Computers only have chips, men have the heart. It’s the heart where the wisdom comes from.”
According to Jack Ma the computers can never outrace humans and the wisdom can never be developed in any computer.
But there is no evident proof that computer wisdom is completely irrelevant. Wisdom is nothing but information and data used by computers is also information. So if somehow a bridge is made between this data conversion then it is quite possible that machines will be as wise as us.
Even though not wise, computers are much more efficient in many works and that already gives them a huge edge and we can already see automation of factories with machines rather than human controlled manual machines. So the questions still pose a threat to the humanity and proper answers have to be formulated to avoid future problems.
A ray of hope may be seen from Mr. Musk’s Statement, “We need to find a way to connect our brains to computers so that we could “go along for the ride with AI”.” His latest startup is developing some kind of chip to allow the control of machines with humans and doesn't let computers to outrace the humans.
Well now its a matter of time to see how these issues are dealt with and whose mode of thinking is practically feasible.
