AI, Artificial Intelligence is all the rage these days. There isn’t a newspaper or television news broadcast that isn’t covering all the various aspects of AI and it is current and future impact on our world.
I’ve watched stocks jockey positions as news of companies, staffing, lawsuits, and manufacturing giants come to light. So, what exactly AI?
The computer can actually “think” for the user. It is more than the “auto-fill” that we often curse at as words are replaced in our emails or texts as we type. AI is in every piece of software you can imagine. It has applications in robotic machines that assist surgeons performing operations. It will write a book for you in the style of your favorite author. It will draw artwork and make animation. It will write music. It drives cars. It is prominent in many military applications, smart bombs and drones. There seems to be no end to the things it can do. But it doesn’t put smiles of the faces of everyone, and some people are not anxious to have the technology advance so quickly or advance at all.
There are more than a few ownership lawsuits cropping up. Authors were some of the first to file suit when it was found that everything they spent their lifetime writing was used to help create AI. Not just public domain articles, but the entire works of Stephen King, J.K. Rawlings, Mark Twain, but every letter to the editor of your favorite newspaper. Anything in print. And the authors were paid no royalties for the use of that material. Today the music industry stepped in claiming copyright infringement for music used to teach them.
But as many sci-fi writers point out, AI needs to have limits. Did anyone stop to think of the ramifications of a machine “thinking and acting” on our behalf will actually do? There is a treasure trove of movies out over the many years about this very topic. From Frankenstein to the Terminator series. Warnings about what can happen when these machines take on a life or mind of their own and exceed their programmed limits.
Now I can hardly manage my smart phone, and I willing admit it is smarter than I am. It’s constantly doing things I didn’t ask it to do. As a professional working in publishing, how do I know the article that was submitted was written by a human, or a product of AI? And that is just a small example of the types of conundrums we are facing. Even the manufactures of AI products have gone to Congress to ask for legislation for oversite. Teachers are having a field day with clever students using AI to do their homework. And the list goes on.
Shouldn’t we take a pause? Just because we have the technology to do something does that mean we should? Can we allow ourselves some time to examine the moral and ethical ramifications of this technology? Apparently not. NSDAQ closed up again yesterday.
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