Courtesy of wikipedia.org
The danger lurking within AI isn’t that it may go rogue, but how it affects our brains. For example, I use the free version of Grammarly to correct punctuation errors, but I won’t pay for language assistance. That would be like hiring someone to exercise for me. If I want to hone my writing skills, I have to wrestle with words.
Science supports me on that point. Nataliya Kos’myna, PhD, a research scientist at MIT, warns that replacing AI for cognitive thinking leads to brain death. Simply put, if our brains never enter a synchronized gamma state, it won’t get the workout it needs.
Universities worry that students use AI to write their essays, but their concern scratches the surface. There is evidence that some who attend online colleges use avatars to earn their degrees. Theoretically, a person would earn a law degree without reading a book.
Other ways to abuse A1 are already in play. Bad actors in law enforcement use the system to check on their wives’ activities and stalk women.
ICE employs A1 to scan license plates, searching for illegal aliens. Civil liberties groups cry foul. They say these scans are an invasion of privacy that affects not only illegal aliens but lawful citizens.
Media headlines warn that AI could go rogue, exterminating humans or treating them as pets; I worry that humans will abuse AI’s power to society’s detriment. Either way, I side with industry workers who signed a petition seeking to slow its development.
No doubt, the proposal will fall on deaf ears. Too many fear a pause would give China a technical edge. Or they object to the loss of profits. Fear and greed easily override judgment. I mean no criticism by this. I state facts. Nature wired both impulses into our brains as prime directives thousands of years ago. When faced with danger, we are to run like hell. If there’s a famine, we scrap for the smallest grain of corn.
To be fair to our species, many mechanisms guide us that we do not understand. Only recently has science uncovered a key organizing principle in our brains: how genes rely on ancient instructions to turn themselves on and off. That same mechanism governs every living thing on the planet, from primates to fungus. This new knowledge should raise a question. If fungus hasn’t learned to control A1, why do we suppose we can?
Joking aside, we can’t even manage our democracy. Historian Timothy Snyder gives us reasons. A lot of Americans don’t want democracy, and a lot of Americans don’t want freedom…A lot of Americans would like to be told what to do.
Snyder’s remarks justify my devotion to democracy. I believe in the principle of one-person-one-vote because it levels the playing field for rich and poor. It also allows us to keep an eye on each other.
Am I a misanthrope? If so, I blame the oligarchs. When trillionaire Elon Musk insists that withholding USAID food assistance to impoverished countries has 0.0% effect on human lives, I am convinced his excess of money has warped his brain.
Snyder is more optimistic than I am about the direction of humankind. So, we’d be wise to listen to him when he writes that the worst of times is the best of times to build a new future. All we need is leaders we can trust.
Well, there’s the snag. Trust. Snyder may have forgotten the fable about the frog and the scorpion, but I have not. I close with it here as a reminder to everyone.
A scorpion, wishing to cross a river, convinces a frog to ferry it to the other side. “I won’t sting you,” it says. “If I killed you, I’d be killing myself.” Convinced, the frog agrees to give the scorpion safe passage. But halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog with its venom. “Why?” asks the frog as its head plummets below the water.
The scorpion, also sinking, apologizes. “Sorry. I can’t help myself. It’s my nature.”
BOYCOTT Tesla, Apple, Amazon
*Use every man after his desert, and who shall ‘scape whipping? (Hamlet, 11,,ii)
