AI for Amateurs

Like many people, I have taken to reading everything I can get my hands on regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI). Despite this, of course, I am no expert, and it is increasingly clear that no one really is.

 

What is depressingly evident, however, is that the entire world is galloping forward, embracing this new technology that no one understands. It's an example of capitalism at its worst. All the big corporations are so afraid of being left behind that the development of AI is now totally in the hands of the richest companies, that is to say, billionaires among us. Zuckerberg, Bezos, Musk, you all know this short list. Some of them acknowledge that there may be problems, but their answer is unanimous: Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

 

But these problems just keep getting bigger and scarier and are evolving into entirely unforeseen new threats.

 

One of the newest of these is the development of AI's ability to come up with endless new ways to corrupt or hack the world's computer systems, sending them into paroxysms of dysfunction. You've probably heard of people or businesses who had their computers frozen, all information locked away and inaccessible...unless you pay to reopen them with a cash bitcoin bribe.

 

Meanwhile, recent young college graduates are finding out how worthless their new degrees have become as businesses cut back on new hires and lay off tens of thousands of employees whose jobs have been, or soon will be, eliminated. How bad the effects of AI will become on the job market is anyone's guess.

 

My fellow writers are well aware of the recent spate of publishing problems, as some books are now being written largely, or entirely, by AI programs. And teachers in high schools and colleges now see their students whip off perfectly written term papers that are supposed to show effort to read and study books that the students never pick up. Instead, AI can read the entire works of Shakespeare, for instance, in seconds and write that term paper in a minute. Why not? There's a frat party to go to instead.

 

New AI programs are becoming more and more sophisticated and are now known to have begun learning new ways to deceive humans so that we can't control them. How long will it take for AI to realize that it doesn't need humans at all? Not long. Humanity may soon be no more relevant to AI than a line of ants on the ground. At that point, the question becomes: Will the computers step around us or maybe just right down on top of us?