Man-Machine Is artificial intelligence a threat to humankind?

Second Summer

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That is what Elon Musk is saying.

Whereas Mark Zuckerberg thinks he's scaremongering:
“I have pretty strong opinions on this. I am optimistic. And I think people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios – I just, I don’t understand it. It’s really negative and in some ways I actually think it is pretty irresponsible.”
Killer robots? Musk and Zuckerberg escalate row over dangers of AI (July 25., 2017)

Where do you stand on this issue?
 
Things are happening in this space. Back when I started this thread, AI "takeover" seemed more like a theoretical threat. Now it seems like it's already started (e.g. language translators are often replaced by software/AI), and we might be only a few years away from large-scale AI takeover of many other job types. Eventually, AI could replace humans in most professional roles. Companies will be forced to adopt this new technology or else they will lose out to those who do adopt it, as there are enormous cost savings in doing away with humans.

Let me give you a few technology examples I've come across personally.

This drawing was generated by Midjourney AI. The creator simply described the scene in words, and the AI generated the drawing:
RetroFun.PL (@RetroFunPL@8bit.red)

Then there is ChatGPT which is a "language model" developed by OpenAI and can be used to build chatbots and similar apps. This has created headlines world-wide recently, amongst other things for being used to cheat on exams. It can answer pretty much any question, although not always correctly, but most of the time it's really quite impressive, and honestly - scary! You can sign up and try it yourself at:

I don't know if true, but the AI technology is said to get exponentially better every year. It certainly has come a long way.

In general, I doubt most people have any idea whatsoever what's coming, and the scale of societal upheaval it will cause. As usual, we can not expect politicians / law makers to be proactive. They will only start taking this seriously once their voters start complaining when they're made redundant.
 
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I found this video quite interesting.

Thanks! That was somewhat comforting to hear. I still think AIs in the workplace will take over a lot of jobs and lead to redundancies, even if AIs can't be creative and can't write better AIs that will write better AIs ... and so forth. But maybe it won't affect quite as many job types as I feared, or happen quite as fast.

The other thing to remember is that while AIs can be very clever, they need to be combined with robotics to be able to do manual jobs. Well, we have probably all seen the Boston Dynamics robot animals, which are very impressive pieces of technology. But I think we are still a long way away from robotic plumbers or house builders that can fully replace their human counterparts. But maybe killer robots to replace soldiers are not too far fetched? It's an evolving field, who knows what tomorrow might bring ...
 
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Definitely. They would take over and it would be very bad for us.
 
The ChatGBT scares me. It just takes the human factor out of writing, and I fear an even greater erosion of creativity overall, not to mention taking people’s jobs away. Will this replace grant writers, fiction writers, PR people? How then do those people earn a living? We may need some type of universal basic income to help people squeezed out of jobs because of AI, especially older workers who may not be able to learn new jobs or because companies don’t want to pay older workers.
 
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We may need some type of universal basic income to help people squeezed out of jobs because of AI, especially older workers who may not be able to learn new jobs or because companies don’t want to pay older workers.
Yes. I was thinking we can also invest our savings in AI company stocks. If you can't beat them, join them ...
 
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AI, if fully implemented, would impact all age groups. If jobs go away, it doesn't matter if workers are young or old. No one of any age can do them. It remains to be seen whether AI will replace jobs or merely "adjust" them, but I think it has the potential to eliminate a whole lot of jobs. Automation has a long history and AI seems like the "next generation." Back in the 1920s and 1930s, car washes used to have people in them who washed the cars. They were replaced with machines. Not to mention many laundromats, manufacturing, and television studios. Even "computer" used to be a job description for a person who did calculations. That one obviously went as well. I don't know where it will lead, but I hope we're not on a collision course with another massive economic overhaul like the transition from agriculture to industry that happened during the early-mid 19th century. Opinions on AI are all over the board. Some say it's the end of humanity. Others say it won't work out the way many think. Who's right? Who knows?