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| Photo by Andres Alaniz: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-lone-person-stands-on-top-of-a-sand-dune-27700773/ |
To say that
AI or artificial intelligence has been in the news for years is an obvious
understatement. It has dominated national discourses worldwide for a very long
time now. From extolling its magical and almost mythical abilities to usher in
an era of automated super efficiency to fears about it causing mass
unemployment and heralding an apocalyptic scenario where AI takes over from
mankind reducing it to irrelevance, never has a slew of new technologies caused
so much exuberance and dread in equal measure, since the invention of the
wheel.
Let's step
aside from all the noise for the moment and look at what AI has really achieved in the short period of
time that it has become the cynosure of all eyes.
What has AI done for us?
That AI
constitutes a set of game-changing technologies was never in doubt. It has
already put into effect what many hope are seminal changes in almost all
aspects of human activity and endeavour. You find the technology being leveraged
across diverse sectors- e-commerce, technology (of course), education,
healthcare, logistics, media, content creation, finance, travel, real estate,
fashion, automotive and government organizations.
AI creates
an impact on myriad industries, sectors and organizations on account of certain
outstanding abilities possessed by it. These pertain to-
1. Automation that considerably
smoothens the running of a system or process by making it function
automatically, lending it to use across multiple industries.
2. Machine learning that incorporates
vision enabling the use of a camera and digital signal processing leading to
analysis and prediction.
3. Natural language processing that
involves processing human language via a computer program allowing things like
instant translation from one language to another.
4. Robotics that involves the designing
and creation of cyborgs that can perform tasks deemed too difficult or
dangerous for humans super efficiently helping something like an assembly line
run super efficiently and without a glitch.[1]
The
question to ponder over here, of course, always was whether the mere existence
of a technology is reason enough (or is even desirable) to use it. There is
always a moral and ethical question about the large-scale use and adoption of technology.
The technologies that made the world a better place to live in for humans since
the advent of the Industrial Revolution did not do so uniformly with the
colonizing nations reaping all the benefits and the colonized ones witnessing a
collapse of centuries or millennia-old ways of living. The subsequent catching
up by the latter has led the world to the brink of an environmental
catastrophe.
Might
something similar be happening with the relentless plugging of AI by the big
technology corporations of Silicon Valley who are no less than neo-colonists
wanting the whole world to be trapped in a Matrix-like web of technological slavery?
There are a host of inherent problems in the wholesale adoption of AI which are
rightly catching the attention of individuals, governments and civil society
groups around the world. These principally constitute:
1. Security and accuracy.
2. AI’s impact on human agency.
3. Personal data integrity.
4. Lack of universal accessibility.
5. Lack of scrutiny and accountability
6. Not driving positive social change.
7. Making a whole host of professions
untenable.
8. Not ecologically sustainable.
9. Unethical in the way Generative AI
perpetually regurgitates existing data and information created by human
endeavour without due acknowledgement.
10. Stifling human creativity and genius
leading to disastrous consequences for the human race in the times ahead.
11. Driven solely by the economic
interest of big technology companies looking for big-ticket funding and huge
market expansion.
The blowback is coming
The question,
“Who is AI for” is beginning to get asked and asked loud and clear. The
protracted Hollywood writers’ strike was a very potent symbol of the growing
unease over not just the use but also the intrusion of AI into our lives.
Everyone has begun to genuinely fear for their jobs and indeed their way of
living. From aggrieved creators (writers, photographers, graphic artists and
even actors), coders, and teachers to doctors, lawyers, cab drivers and
pilots-everyone is figuratively running away from the looming shadow of the AI
monster that will likely wreak havoc on humans, much like the aliens in HG
Well’s sci-fi book, War of the Worlds threatened to do. When people like Elon
Musk suggest that in an AI-run economy, people would be better off receiving a
high Universal Basic Income rather than competing with AI, even when he sacks
80% of Twitter employees on taking over the company, the irony is obvious to
all.
People are
revolted by fake-looking AI-generated imagery and soulless mechanical writing
bereft of any real human emotion having been created by a phantom existence with
no personality of its own. Far from aiding the creative process, AI is being
leveraged by profit-obsessed mega corporations to drastically reduce their
costs by firing workers and replacing them with technology. Creative people
everywhere make the valid point that feeding the layperson with media with zero
human contribution lands the human race in a philosophically nebulous zone.
Besides, they point out that by training on existing people's work to create
output, AI is ethically in the dog house as well.[2]
The hype
that AI companies created about the capabilities of new age technologies like
Generative AI allowed them to receive massive funding which hasn't really
translated into much in real terms. This has led to a considerable shrinkage of
both funding and industry backing in 2024. While many tech companies continue
to back AI with massive funding believing that it will lead to the creation of
new Microsofts, Apples and Googles, many are already predicting the end of the
so-called AI age. They liken it to other notable technology failures that have
emanated from the Silicon Valley dream factory-the Metaverse, and NFT being
prime examples of that.
According
to some experts, the recent steep fall in stock market prices across the world
is attributable to the sell-off witnessed by tech companies who bet big on AI.
Not just that, people are leaving the revered Sam Altman helmed Open AI in large
numbers and many tech companies face lawsuits on account of their content
scraping policies. What's more the Federal government in the United States now believes
that Google is a monopoly with all that it entails.[3]
For far too long has the technology sector had the world in its thrall- no
questions asked. It is almost like a new religion had been founded that
everyone must kowtow to without analyzing what it really meant and implied.
The tech
industry expanded exponentially riding on the coattails of the growth of the
internet. Given that the internet has pretty much grown as much as it possibly
can, the former has been left clutching at straws hoping to discover a new
trailblazer that will lead to the creation of the next crop of mega-corporations.
But that does not really appear to have happened. Not by Web 3.0 and not it
seems by AI. Brace for the revenge of the regular people.
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