Why I am still frightened of AI?
As a late-onset hippie, I spent last weekend at WOMAD, an amazing festival in the heart of Wiltshire. Although the theme is officially world music, art, and dance, there is also a surprising focus on physics and the festival attracts excitable physicists and the like. It was here that I “got to meet” the AI experts.
In a layout of open-air tables, 200+ of us managed to sit down in small groups and challenge/question/harangue the very developers and purveyors of the inestimably clever artificial intelligence sweeping the globe.
The overriding message from the experts was the old faithful – garbage in, garbage out – and, surprisingly, “don’t trust it blindly”; there was quite a focus on the terrifying speed at which AI can spread misinformation, and we were all encouraged to ask AI a question not just once, but several times over in different ways to maximise the chance of getting the best answer. It was the ‘under-20s’ who surprised me the most as they were the least trusting or welcoming of AI, though that could be just the demographic which attends festivals. Either way, there might be hope that the next generation will err on the side of caution.
As anyone who has seen the gloriously fun hokum, Mission Impossible 7, will agree – the idea that our lives could be so completely taken over by AI is truly horrific and yet disturbingly possible. I really am not an old stick-in-the-mud Luddite, but with everyone so desperate to jump on the AI bandwagon (just read recent property press for examples), are we sure we know what the hell we are doing?
This blog will self-destruct in 10 seconds…