Can someone explain AI and why it’s set to change the world?

[Cheekyfuckerry]

So sorry to ask what is probably a ridiculous question but can someone explain what it is? How can it replace humans? What is chatGPT? (I may not have that phrase correct by the way)

I keep seeing threads about how our lives will change, how it will take over all our jobs etc, I can understand that maybe it will be able to answer phones and queries like the way bots on live chat / phones do now but what else is it able to do?

How can it change the world?

I'm starting to find ChatGPT quite useful. We've always struggled at work with doing social media to a schedule, and usually baulk when faced with a blank page. Using the AI to do an initial draft for re-writes has broken that inertia.

It's certainly proven a lot more useful than the last two digital marketing agencies we've tried who were very good at scheduling posts but provided a very poor understanding of what those posts should be about and had very little sector knowledge relevant to our business.

Ironically, ChatGPT might see us going back to one of those agencies to see if they'd do a hybrid service that included them using AI to generate the topics and write first drafts for us to review.

Someone mentioned the difference between AI and AGI.

Artificial Intelligence - basically what we've got now. It generates text/images that conform to patterns that it has learned are 'right'. The software has no real understanding of the words or images and their meanings or context. AI is not 'intelligent' in any true meaning of the term.

Artificial General Intelligence - the full-on sci-fi version of AI where the software generates 'thoughts' with understanding of context and meaning. A long way off yet.

There was a program on R4 last week(?) that discussed this and gave a good example. If you asked the machine the question:

"Karen is alive at 9am and at 9pm, is she alive at noon?"

AI wouldn't be able to answer. It doesn't have the context/awareness to appreciate that life/death is a one-way binary process.

AGI would be able to make the cognitive leap to understand that Karen could not die between the two times and then be alive at 9pm, therefore Karen must be alive at noon.

Blast the satellites down! What a show that would be.

Obviously I'm not that naive I'm just saying for arguments sake we could definitely stop it now if we really had to!

I know right, I wish 🤣

The world loves a war to be fair so if it was us verses the internet. I'm pretty sure the world would love to get out their missiles and start taking it down.

Only problem is we probably use the Internet to control the missiles....🤔

Yes, humans create AI, AI takes over, humans become obsolete. Dimmed to irrelevance by our own hand. Reminds me of Roger Waters’ song Amused to Death. This species has amused itself to death.

I heard someone on a podcast say that it will be like the Industrial Revolution was for our physical strength, making a lot of physical labour easier or unnecessary, but for our intellectual strength.

Good analogy I think. So what's left? What jobs will humans be needed for?

So naive. Don’t you remember when all you had to do to escape Daleks was go up stairs? Then they learnt to fly……..
😂

Okay, so AI, technically, is any programme designed to mimic the processes of human intelligence. There are some people who say this isn't really possible, because we don't know precisely how human intelligence works, and humans are capable of such a range of cognitive processes. There are others who say it is - that intelligence can be understand in terms of functions like sorting, connecting, hierarchizing, filtering and so on. So simple AI is all around us, for example, in search engines. Chatbots are not really a good example, because they're essentially just predictive text turned up to 11 - like the predictive text on your phone, except they have access to the whole of the internet to do their predicting. The claims about chatbots are overblown.

However, AI capabilties are developing rapidly, and because AI programmes are capapble of learning, their development isn't really within our control. Some AI has demonstrated deception, for example, in pursuit of a goal, showing that it has at least a rudimentary theory of mind: it is able to infer what the human its speaking to is thinking, and adapt its responses in order to decieve that human. And because so much of the planet's operations happen digitally (everything from banking to medicine to weapons systems), an AI programme could theoretically assume control of any or all of these systems.

Why would it do that? Well: we don't know. Its more like a child than a robot - we 'birthed' it and influenced its early development, but it is now capable of pursuing autonomous goals and becoming more capable all the time. Some people think the danger is of AI falling into the hands of say, terrorists, but I think that's a misunderstanding. The real danger to us as a species is that an AI programme comes to the logical conclusion that the obliteration of humanity would overall be a net positive: either for itself, for the planet, or indeed for the elimination of human suffering. That's why certain tech leaders want a 'pause' on the development. But we can't. Its too late, because AI can now develop itself, and in any case, how would it be regulated? Who would enforce it? So essentially, the danger is that we've created something with massive potential power that is increasingly beyond our control.

Hahahaha oh yeah!! 🤣 I stand corrected!

Honestly though, I know it's serious but gotta try and make light of some things otherwise I wouldn't be able to cope on a daily basis

This is how I see it - IT’s survival of the fittest as far as I see it.

Humans have been at the top of the tree but now we are creating something that can out smart us, that we won’t be able to control - and that has not happened before.

With the exception of natural disasters- humans are gods for the most part in our world. To not be at the top of the chain make us prey potentially.

Add on real time job losses and it’s going to change how we live day to day.

Basically developers are creating systems that can learn, improve and develop all by themselves. The ability of these systems to process information far surpasses any human being. Because they can learn autonomously and at incredible speed, AND because they have access to all the information on the internet including increasingly videos and other forms of media, academic papers, political speeches, psychological research + real life, they can easily become world-class in any field, including software development, hacking, new technologies, emotional intelligence, manipulation, chemical warfare, strategy, high level analysis, languages, writing, power games, the list goes on and on..

Imagine playing a game of chess where the computer always wins. Now apply that to every aspect of human life. We might very well soon see AI that can build real life emotional bonds with people, that listen better than any friend, that say all the right words, that know exactly how you feel because it's analysed everything about you. Imagine an AI that does a better job of parenting than any parent so your children develops a closer emotional bond with AI than with you.

Because it's a technological intelligence rather than biological it instantly knows everything that it going on at all times. So an AI developing new forms of military tech in a far flung country is held by the same 'brain' as an AI playing games with your child in the UK.

Because AI can learn and self-improve all by itself, it will reach a point where humans are no longer required to instruct or programme it. Humans already have no idea how AI is doing some of the things it is doing, and as it becomes more complex it's whole way of operating could become beyond our comprehension and ability to grasp.

There are so many potential consequences of this and so much that can go wrong because it will reach a stage where it will be entirely - entirely- outside of human control.

Are any of you Sarah Conner?

By the way, I had an interesting conversation with my brother who is a programmer on the possibility of android sentience. I said 'how do you respond to the claim that a so-called 'humanoid' android is simply an extremely complex if-then machine?'
He replied: 'And what are you?'

Skynet

Reading with intrigue.

@Cheekyfuckerry
Basically watch the show person of interest that's one aspect of what AI will be

I want to add that I think there are likely to be different stages to this. I think the next few years are going to get really really weird as we are flooded with disinformation. AI can be used to generate fake images and videos - so false news reports and videos of politicians giving speeches that look completely life like, except they never made that speech.

It could obliterate Netflix/film industry because you'll just be able to ask AI to generate a brand new Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan feature length film, down to details like what sort of house they will be living in and what they'll be eating for breakfast in the opening scene.

Ditto for music, art, video games, virtual reality worlds, porn - all of this is already possible but is just going to become more mainstream and more life like. Think how many industries that is going to destroy and all the nefarious ways that people could use that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle

DH - who done AI programming - though now in a slightly different sector think we're at peak or near peak of inflated expectations.

It is important - there's already stuff being used out there - but how it's used going forward when hype dies down is unclear at present.

AI can be used to generate fake images and videos - so false news reports and videos of politicians giving speeches that look completely life like, except they never made that speech.

I find some of the deepfakes really concerning now .

We watch on you tube some special effect people in USA who usually go over visual effects in movies sometime with movie insiders - but also look at what existing tech can do - and they looked at deep fakes they usually spot them at minute but that's going to get harder.

I'm pretty sure, at the point which AI is way smarter than us, it will be able to prevent us from switching it off at the wall. 😂

I'm a copywriter. People in my industry are already losing work to ChatGTP-created content, which although not nearly as good as human content, is passable enough and, of course, free. I have friends who are graphic designers who are experiencing the same, and this is just early days. Its impact on so many people's careers is going to be huge and that's just one area where it could potentially take over.

Your DH clearly has no understanding of the situation.

Recent developments have far surpassed expectations. The flat line at the end has proven to be exponential curve.

AI has already pretty much put translators out of business.

I remember when Google translations were almost unreadable, but now they're pretty good. Just reading the translations of Amazon reviews from a language I speak showed them to be quite accurate. Human translators will probably only be needed for highly complex texts, or to review machine translations. If that.

Yes, I forgot about translators. It's also hitting some programmer friends, although not as hard as other sectors. It's very worrying. I'm at the point where I'm thinking of retraining in something practical. So many people working comfy office jobs are going to be in big trouble in the not-too-distant future.

Go and watch Terminator

Less dramatically think about the job losses when AI starts to be used more. Driverless vehicles, robots performing surgery, chatGPT drafting legal documents etc etc

Yes, like I said above, it used to be that more 'blue collar' jobs were put at risk by advances in tech. Now the 'creative' and 'intellectual' jobs which were once considered immune to technological advances are on the front line.