Can artificial intelligence change the world more than light or the internet?

Promotion general artificial intelligence (YAG), which Silicon Valley considers inevitable, will lead to changes never seen before in the world, observers say. But are we ready?

YAGdefined as artificial intelligence with human cognitive abilities, as opposed to more limited artificial intelligence such as intellect ChatGPT that grabs the headlines, can free people from their chores and usher in a new era of creativity.

But such a profound paradigm shift could also endanger jobs and create intractable social problems, experts warn.

Previous technological advances, from the invention of electricity to the Internet, have brought powerful social change, said Siki Chen, chief executive of San Francisco-based startup Runway.

“What we see now is the mind itself… For the first time, we can create the mind itself and increase its volume in the universe,” Chen said. AFP.

As a result, this change will be “an order of magnitude larger than any other technological change we’ve had in history,” he said.

And such exciting and terrifying changes are “a double-edged sword,” Chen said. The chief believes that the IAG can be used to fight climate change, for example, but also warned that it is a tool that should be used to the maximum by people.

launch ChatGPT at the end of last year, a huge step was taken towards the realization of a long-standing dream of IAG.

OpenAI, a generative software company that produces essays, poetry and code on demand, this week released an even more powerful version of the technology it’s based on: GPT-4.

OpenAI ensures that the new technology will be able to process not only texts but also images, as well as create more complex content such as legal complaints or video games.

Thus, according to some criteria, it “demonstrates human-level performance,” the company said.

goodbye hard work

The success of Microsoft-backed OpenAI has sparked an arms race of sorts in Silicon Valley as the tech giants look to take their generative AI tools to the next level, though they still fear that chatbots will go off the rails.

AI-powered digital assistants from Microsoft and Google can already wrap up meetings, compose emails, build websites, design campaigns, and more. This gives us an idea of ​​what IAG will be able to do in the future.

“We spend too much time on routine work,” said Jared Spataro, corporate vice president of Microsoft.

With artificial intelligence, Spataro wants to “rediscover the soul of work,” he said during a Microsoft presentation on Thursday.

Some suggest that artificial intelligence could also cut costs.

British landscape architect Joe Perkins tweeted that he used GPT-4 for a programming project for which a “very good” developer wanted to charge him about $6,000 with a two-week deadline for doing so.

“GPT-4 delivered the same thing to me in three hours for only $0.11,” he tweeted. “Really stunning.”

But it raises the question of a threat to jobs. Even Chen admits that technology could one day create a startup like him, or even a better version of it.

“How will I make a living and how will I not be left on the street?” he asked. But he said he hoped solutions would come.

existential problems

Pervasive artificial intelligence questions the authenticity of various creations as songs, images, artwork and other content are created by software, not by humans.

Will people abandon education as we know it and trust software to do the thinking for them?

Who can be trusted to create artificial intelligence that is fair, accurate, and adaptable to different countries and cultures?

AGI is “probably emerging faster than we can process it,” said Sharon Zhou, co-founder of a generative artificial intelligence company.

Technology poses an existential question for humanity, Zhou said. AFP.

“If something stronger and smarter than us appears, what does it mean for us?” – he asked. “And does it rule over us, or do we rule over it?”

OpenAI has stated that it plans to gradually develop IAG with the goal of benefiting all of humanity, but acknowledged that there are security flaws in the software.

Security is a “process,” said Ilya Sutskever, head of the OpenAI science department, in an interview with MIT Technology Review. It would be “highly desirable” for the companies to “propose some kind of process that would allow slower release of models with such unprecedented capabilities,” he added.

But for now, according to Zhou, the trend is not slowing down.

“Power is centered around those who can build these things. And they make decisions around it, and they tend to do it quickly.”

He argued that even the international order was under threat.

“The pressure between the United States and China has been enormous,” said Zhou, who sees the race for AI as reminiscent of the Cold War era.

“There is definitely a risk that if a country develops YAG then dominate,” he added.

Zhou believes that the current philosophy is: “let’s not stop, because we can’t lose.”

(According to AFP)