“Artificial Intelligence is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilisation”
In the summer of 2016, Microsoft launched amid much fanfare, the most advanced Artificial Intelligent twitter bot which was supposed to be a self-learning autobot, but Microoft was forced to pull it down from the micro-blogging site twitter as autobot soon turned obtuse violent racist and xenophobic. It began following prominent people and spewing venom on their haters. It abused minorities to no end and even was inciting violence against them. Microsoft revealed the dark side of AI. It had become what a fast learning individual would become on the internet and followed ‘herd mentality’.
In a completely unrelated incident, an auto-chat bot launched by Facebook began acting strange and logging into the accounts of users it interated with. It turned to downloading all their information and keeping track of their activity, as any stalker would. It even stored the data by self-encryption; none of which it was tasked or programmed to do. The facebook quickly took it down too, but not before it garnered bad press.
The message was clear, A.i. could amplify the basest of human emotions and without much contemplation magnify it.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial Intelligence(A.I.) is a new paradigm of machine learning where a software is designed to operate independent of human interface and is also expected to be self-evolving.
It is a very innovative dimension which scientists are yet exploring and are trying to align with our needs. It has huge potential with the increasing population and lack of human resource to address our growing needs.
It also has an economic incentive attached to it, as has any capitalist funded innovation, it can exploit the knowledge gap and thus is a potential source of earning.
Multiple Utilities
A Chinese news-station surprised its viewers, when a Humanoid A.I. was deputed to read the news to its viewers It read the news in such a human-like fashion that it was not easy to distinguish. Similarly, a Buddhist temple in Japan has installed an A.I. Priest which leads the congregation in mass prayers. Apart from these fascinating anecdotes; A.I. has truly taken over in a big way.
Standard&Poor, JP Morgan etc. have started using an AI software to help them plan their asset management investments and even margin calls. Earlier, a whole team of profesiional analysis would scrutinise the market for weaks before making such decisions, which such softwares are able to decide in days with amazing accuracy.
Even in fields which were though to demand extra-ordinary human agency such as music, painting, content writing, medicine and even psychiatry, A.I. has proved detractors wrong and has successfully been making strides recently an A.I. bot completed an open-heart surgery in Jamnagar which is considered to be an amazing feat. The AI chatbot ChatGPT is able to produce original content on almost every topics with amazing accuracy.
Even diagnosis of radiology reports are done more accurately than humans. It is very much evident that A.I. is proving to be a vastly superior force.
In the field of legal analysis; A.I. softwares are being used to simulate and predict outcomes of litigation; this helps the companies to prepare better or change fact in case it appears to be a losing chance.
In field of education, Australia and Japan are using A.I. softwares to design more children friendly classes,even at homes, A.I. penetration has increased as we use interatice A.I.‘s like Alexa and Siri on our smartphones and other devices. The concept of internet of Things (IoT) and Smart housing also utilise A.I.
Risk Posed:
A major question being asked repeatedly is ‘what makes human action human?’ it is the ‘soul’ or psychologically speaking human-will, will the actions of an A.I. which tries to performs human actions while lacking human consciousness or ‘soul’ be sound on the principle of ethics and morality will an A.I. be able to show empathy to a patient diagnosed with state IV cancer when it displays the report? Will it be able to encourage a student who is not performing better to work harder? All such questions and many more need serious consideration.
A grave ethical concern emerging is that of self-driving vehiles which are embroiled in accidents who will bear the responsibility or shpould it be classified as an industrial accident. It is also emerging as to how should the vehicles prioritise road safety and in case of multiple damages; who or what should be the collateral? Will it be the kid playing on footpath, the elderly women crossing the road, the dog lying on the curb or the owner sitting in the vehicle.
A new threat in form of A.I. generated fake videos and photos has come up where it is indistinguishable to realise which is real and which is not. Recently, a ‘deep-fake’, as the software is called; vedio was circulated on social media where Obama was seen as giving indidiary speeh. It has potential to disrupt world peace and being international relations into disrepute.
The excessive use of A.I. scripted chat-bots which are used to replace call centres are annoying users and not giving then overall a sense of satisfaction. This has been exponded in the ‘Media richness theory’which explains that impersonal interactions leads to unsatisfactory outcomes. Recent chatbot chatGPT is being considered as threat to jobs of content writers and even software professionals.
Then why A.I.?
Although A.I. is a dangerous tool, it is a powerfully inducive one; countries like India which suffer from poor doctor-patient ratio can make use of such software to provide diagnosis of rural PHCs with some investment in infrastructure.
It can bring benefits to the poor and those living in remore areas due to wide coverage; elimination of human emotions at a certain stage can also eliminate the evils of selfish actions like corruption, crony-capitalism etc. in policy formulation.
It also eliminates the limitations of human actions due to information asymmetry and action in-cohesion, since it is untiring and can process large volume of information easily.
What needs to be taken care of is that we should not try to play god or else we might end up like Frankestein, who tried to creating life; but ended up creating a monster. Artificial Intelligence is like Pandora Box, it contains ailments and cure; but what grows brightest is ‘hope’ and similarly we hope to use A.I. for our good.
