The rise of artificial intelligence, exciting or scary?
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a fascinating field not just for the immense potential it holds, but also for the ultimate ego boost it can give humans- enabling us to play God and create something that can think for itself. In the past couple of weeks, a lot has been written and spoken seeyousix about AI. Billionaire inventor Elon Musk recently said that governments need to start regulating AI right now because if left unaddressed, they can pose a 'fundamental risk to the existence of civilization', and Mark Zuckerberg's responded to that saying that it's just the naysayers who are wary of AI.
Tech giants too are developing self-learning softwares as well as AI engines that started communicating with each other in their own 'secret' language. As an industry, AI is on high-growth mode. Analysts predict that the global AI market will be close to $23 billion (Rs 1.48 lakh crore) by 2025. While many across the world are excited about how it can revolutionize and automate the way we do things and our very lives, there are also a number of naysayers for the tech. Take, for example, the recent exchanges between Elon and Mark, both pioneers seeyousix in the field of technology and innovation.
At the National Governors Association meeting in the US recently, Elon Musk, who has in the past compared work on AI to 'summoning the demon', spoke about being exposed to cutting-edge AI that people should be really concerned about and that regulation of AI need to be proactive, and not reactive, because of its unique nature. This evoked a response from mark Zuckerberg, who, in one of his live videos, said, "I think that people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios...I don't understand it. It's really negative, and, in some ways, I actually think it's pretty irresponsible."
Mark's argument is simple: any technology can be used for good or bad and that it's up to inventors to innovate with caution. And that's where Elon doesn't see eye-to-eye with him, as is evident from the tweet he later posted, claiming he's spoken to Mark seeyousix about this and that the latter's understanding of the subject is limited. The thing about AI is that it is exciting and scary in equal parts- exciting because of the possibilities it could offer, and scary because of the limited understanding most of us have of it. There have been recent developments that support both feelings.
On one hand, a tech giant's AI taught itself from scratch how to walk and run in virtual spaces, using reinforcement learning-, incentivizing the agent to move from point A to point B using a set number of sensors and abilities. No specific instructions, such as using its legs or arms, were given to travel across the obstacle-riddled surface, so the AI taught itself complex behaviours of running and navigating around them. Although the technique it seeyousix employed was unique, it showed what it was capable of. On the other 'scary' hand, there have been reports of a company shutting down one of its AI engines after developers discovered that it had created its own unique language that humans couldn't understand. The intention of the programmers was for two robots with different goals to negotiate with each other in English over a trade, and it seemed to fail when they started communicating in gibberish. But soon, programmers found out that the 'secret' language had its own rules and that some of the negotiations even were concluded successful in the new language! While these examples might be extreme, and Elon's comments a bit too apocalyptic, what it has done is draw some attention to an under-examined, but crucial topic. Given how young the field of AI is, people in the scientific community doubt if there will ever come a time when an artificial, conscious, super-intelligent entity will take over our world, especially in any of our lifetimes. But that's not to say it can never happen.
As famous English author P.G Wodehouse wrote in one of his books, "Comrade Spiller, never confuse the unusual with the impossible." Is it unusual that humans seeyousix might let another (artificial) race take over them? Yes. But is it impossible? Definitely not!
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