ON THE FRONT LINES: Why everyone should be worried about AI
On the Front Lines
My guilty pleasure of the summer has been binge-watching Steven Bartlett’s podcast, "The Diary Of A CEO" on YouTube. As an 18-year-old university dropout, Bartlett started a marketing company that would become known as Social Chain.
Eight years later, the company was generating $600 million in revenue, but Barlett decided to leave the organization at age 27 to start "The Diary Of A CEO." The podcast consists of interviews with some of the most influential public figures and successful business leaders in the world who share defining moments from their life stories and advice for aspiring entrepreneurs and listeners of the podcast.
A little over a week ago, Bartlett dropped one of his most watched episodes dubbed "EMERGENCY EPISODE: Ex-Google Officer Finally Speaks Out On The Dangers of AI! — Mo Gawdat." And let me tell you, the nearly 2-hour-long podcast episode is fully worth the listen and is more relevant than ever with the popularity of ChatGPT.
Here are some of the key takeaways.
Scary intelligence:
Mo Gawdat, the former chief business officer at Google X (a sort of radical innovation lab), witnessed firsthand the extraordinary yet scary intelligence of AI robots kept in the lab. In the podcast, Gawdat describes an experiment in which a set of AI robots known as "grippers" were tasked with picking up a bunch of children's toys from a basket.
At first, many of them could not. Their arms would reach to pick up a toy and come up with nothing. But one day, Gawdat saw the first robot pick up a yellow ball, and by that Monday, all of the robots were picking up toys with ease. Gawdat emphasizes this as a great "feat of intelligence," saying that even if this task may seem so simple at first glance, this kind of action requires a complex combination of mind-muscle connection and mathematical calculation.
And more than that, these grippers essentially taught themselves how to pick up the toys, and the speed at which they were able to learn was not only a technological triumph but a clear warning sign. AI can learn a whole lot faster than we can, and if we do not regulate it soon, we could lose control of it.
Gawdat predicts that by 2045, AI will be a "billion times smarter than us," and currently, ChatGPT is already a "thousand times" smarter than us. Even though ChatGPT currently takes information that is already out there in the world and is essentially just the best memorizer in the world, Gawdat predicts that very soon AI will be generating unprecedented ideas all on its own that no human has considered.
So, why is this concerning? Even though hyper-intelligent AI could help us generate solutions to some of the globe's most troubling problems like climate change and cancer, how can humans control something that will become astronomically smarter than us if there is no existing legislation?
Gawdat describes how there should have been regulations in place before AI was released on the internet for all people to use, but now, government officials really need to step in before this gets out of hand. So even though ChatGPT may seem like a fun quirky tool, what happens when it starts coming up with ideas on its own? Who could use that kind of power for harm?
Job replacement:
Another concern that comes to mind is job security. If AI will be able to do essentially everything better than us, will it not just replace us in the workforce? But Gawdat says this is not exactly the case. He said, "AI will not take your job. A person using AI will take your job."
And this begs the question, how skilled are you when it comes to using AI? Employment is already a struggle, but adding AI to the equation will only make the job market more competitive. In order to stand a chance, each person will need to access AI technology, practice using it religiously and figure out how they can best use it to their personal advantage to make them as productive as possible.
This also exposes a dangerous implication for the wealth gap, which is already one of the biggest global problems facing our generation. But if people will need access to AI to secure a job, the world’s impoverished with limited or no access to the internet will not stand a chance and will only fall further behind.
Creativity and robotic romance:
Many people will claim that there are aspects of life that AI cannot touch, including human creativity and human connection, but is that really true? Maybe not.
In the podcast, Bartlett and Gawdat discuss two AI-generated Drake albums that synthesize the artist's voice. You may assume that the albums are robotic, awkward and clearly not the original Drake. Think again.
Bartlett describes both albums as "bangers."
So, not only is AI superior to us technically but it is also now creatively Well, this is going too far, but at least we still have human connection, right? Think again.
Bartlett brings up how companies like Tesla and Boston Dynamics have been experimenting with robots by programming them to mimic the perfect partner: one that can do chores around the house, be there for you emotionally, either agree with you or challenge you on everything and even have sex with you.
If AI robots can be the most perfect partner, better than a human could ever be as Gawdat points out, this will give people an easy way out in a difficult human dating world. What will happen if people opt for robots over human beings?
Concluding thoughts:
It is important to keep in mind that this article does not even scratch the surface with the full nuance discussed in the podcast episode, so you should really consider listening to the whole episode.
It made me realize that it is time to wake up.
Toward the end of the podcast, Gawdat said, "Government needs to act now. Now. Honestly now. Like we are late."
We cannot just see AI, like ChatGPT, as fun and games. It is dangerous and will surpass us if we do not take action. We must listen to what the experts, like Gawdat, are saying.
He offers several solutions to slow down AI's progression and urges us all to join the fight in pressuring the government to do something.
Sara Eschleman is the opinions editor of The Daily Targum.
*Columns, cartoons and letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Targum Publishing Company or its staff.
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