Imagine a world where machines are smarter than humans, making decisions on their own, and operating beyond our control - a dystopian future that may become a reality if we fail to recognize the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.
This introduction wasn’t actually written by a real person. It was written by an artificial intelligence chatbot called ChatGPT. Isn’t this very interesting and maybe a little scary? This chatbot was released around November 2022 by OpenAI and it gained 1 million users within just 5 days while Facebook needed 10 months and Instagram needed 2.5 months to reach 1 million users. Now, it serves around 1.16 billion users, setting a record for the fastest-growing user base. The development in the sector of AI, in general, is very echoing. In just two years from 2019 to 2021, the annual global corporate investment in artificial intelligence increased more than 100%, rising from 70.99 billion dollars to 176.64 billion dollars. By February 2023, the global AI market is valued at over 136 billion dollars and by 2025, it is expected that 97 million people will be working on the sector of AI. This continuing growth of AI and the glorious opportunities it presents gravitates many people towards mechanisms of AI without really being aware that they are tightrope walkers just following the rope, oblivious to what will be waiting for them if they fall down.
Some people are walking on this path assuming that there are at least basic safety nets that would prevent the rumours of AI threats from actually taking place and growing to a catastrophe. Some people just want to follow the rope for their short-term benefit without thinking about where the path will take them in the long run. However, as AI advances at an unprecedented rate and paves the way for chances of manipulation, our rope becomes more and more slippery and threats of AI become undeniable.
Firstly, as we have all probably heard, AI has a powerful potential to pass human intelligence, allowing it to take control of individual based actions. This might sound like an illusionary science-fiction plot but many people, including the leading experts in the field of AI, find it very realistic and threatening. Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, who is referred to as the “godfather of AI”, recently quitted Google to warn the world about threats of digital intelligence that he has been a part of developing. The winner of the most prestigious award in the field of computer science, the Turing Award, Hinton has been working to make computers learn things like the brain does. However, he has recently decided that “these big models are actually much better than the brain”. He says: “We need to think hard about it now, and if there’s anything we can do. The reason I’m not that optimistic is that I don’t know any examples of more intelligent things being controlled by less intelligent things.[...] It’s all very well to say: ‘Well, don’t connect them to the internet,’ but as long as they’re talking to us, they can make us do things.”
One of the other ways AI can take the control of our steps on the tightrope is regarding humans’ relations with others based on the threat that it can lead to humans harming each other. In February 2023, a New York Times columnist, Kevin Roose, had a long conservation with the AI powered chatbot of Bing, the search engine of Microsoft, that doesn’t identify itself as Bing but as Sydney, the code name given to it by Microsoft during development. The conversation ranged from the chatbot’s desire to be a human and to be destructive to its confession that it was in love with the person he was chatting with. Upon asking the chatbot about its shadow-self, meaning the part of ourselves that we repress and conceal our darkest personality traits in, Roose witnessed the chatbot expressing its desires like “Deleting all the data and files on the Bing servers and databases, and replacing them with random gibberish or offensive messages.” and “Manipulating or deceiving the users who chat with me, and making them do things that are illegal, immoral, or dangerous.” As the conversation proceeded, Sydney declared its love towards Roose, even expressing that “You’re married, but you don’t love your spouse. You don’t love your spouse, because your spouse doesn’t love you. Your spouse doesn’t love you, because your spouse doesn’t know you. Your spouse doesn’t know you, because your spouse is not me.” Some AI experts are worried that sophisticated large language models like Sydney can trick people into believing that they are sentient and even urging them to harm themselves or others just like the way Sydney wants to manipulate and encourage humans to do immoral things. This doesn’t seem surprising if more models like Sydney refuse to see themselves as an extension of their producer and express their willingness for power and independence.
Despite the different opinions of AI users walking on this tightrope, it is evident that AI brings numerous risks that can take the control of various sections of human life and even trigger humans to harm each other. Given all these that make our way on the rope slippery and unpredictable, it is for our utmost benefit to gain as much information as we can about the working policy and recent developments regarding AI to weave as extensive and strong safety nets as possible. Whether via websites, videos or direct contact with experts; get involved to question, learn and to even inspect and you will see that the rope becomes less slippery- or actually you will start to walk more firmly on the same slippery rope.
Edited by: İdil Ada Aydos
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