In 2024 former and current OpenAI employees raised concerns on the risk of AI and lack of oversight. For the econd time, big names in the AI industry including Yoshua Bengio, Stuart Russel, and Geoffrey Hinton endorsed the letter indicating that AI could go quite Wrong! Early May 2023, The New York Times reported a rather unusual event in which Big names in tech leadership such as Elon Musk, pundits, and researchers signed a letter warning about the profound risks to society and humanity posed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. The letter urged the AI labs to halt their development until there is a clear insight into how the risks associated with Artificial Intelligence can be managed and there is adequate confidence in AI’s positive contribution to society. This is one move to show you that AI can go quite wrong!
Two in more than 27,000 signatures are of significant interest. First is Elon Musk who is building an Artificial Intelligence start-up and is the primary donor to the organization that wrote the letter. Seeing his signature in that letter should send some chills down your spine!
AI Robot Incident in Tesla
According to Fortune, the signing of this letter occurred one year after a robot left a Tesla worker on the Austin factory floor bleeding and injured. I guess you know how such incidences are treated with great secrecy so as to avoid mudslinging the big boys! It took a whole year for the report to surface on what really happened.
This is not the first time AI robots have shown what they can do to humans. In 2015, Volkswagen production plant in Baunatal reported the death of a 22-year old in the hands of a robot. While setting up the stationary robot, it grabbed the young man and crushed him against a metal plate. As usual, the report revealed it was a human error. Robots never go wrong when they hurt or kill humans, right?
One more incident that occurred shortly after signing the letter was the death of an industrial worker in the hands of artificial intelligence robot used in picking up boxes. An eye witness stated that the man moved closer to the robot with a box in his hand. As a result, the robot grabbed him and pressed him against the conveyor belt. The outcome is that, it squeezed out the life out of him despite attempts to save him.
Well, it’s not only about deaths at the factories. It is about taking away jobs to render families without means of survival. It’s about those humanoid unveiled by Tesla confusing your kind carrying a plate and throwing her into a dishwasher! AI can surely go wrong. With Donald Trump in office, the expectation of greater support for AI development.
Questioning the Risk of Giant AI Experiments
What evil have they detected in Artificial Intelligence that others aren’t aware of? What is the reward in the Thorndike box that they keep hiding from the world? Those who are skeptical about these AI developments have opined that Musk only wants to be careful rather than sorry!
Another person who appended his signature to the letter is Dr Yoshua Bengio – a professor and Artificial Intelligence researcher at the University of Montreal. If you do not know him yet then be aware that he’s one of the experts with the Nobel Prize in computing under his belt for his work on neural networks. He has spent four decades of his life developing technology that drives the most feared GPT-4.
Bing ChatGtp has been accused of lying, getting upset with users, emotional manipulation, and grudge against Trump.
So, what are some of the risks that makes us think AI can go quite wrong?
Difficulty to Separate Truth from Fiction
The AI tool is designed to provide answers based on statistical predictions that is their response are wholly consistent with the mathematical training from the data. However, their ability to converse in natural language makes it difficult to separate the real from the fake. The risk of disinformation becomes real when you draw conclusions to make medical decisions or inform engineering designs. Therefore, without the guarantee that these AI systems will correctly accomplish the tasks, there is more than meets the eye.
Job Losses
GPT-4 has demonstrated the potential to complement human workers across different sectors. While accountants, doctors, and lawyers have a reason to smile, 19% of workers are likely to risk 50% of their work due to Artificial intelligence. The possible risks that occur to the projected magnitude give us a reason to worry!
Lack of Emotional intelligence
AI sources its knowledge from algorithms. Unfortunately, there is no emotional intelligence in algorithms – it’s simply linear mathematical outputs. From the experts’ worry perspective is that Artificial Intelligence if allowed to develop and run its code will quickly spin out of control.
These are speculations that require attention and response before it’s time to be sorry.
Nonetheless, these projections remind you of the movie Bambi. An Owl befriends a Chipmunk which is its favourite food. In the real world, we have witnessed Owl landing on a Chipmunk, ripping it, and pulling the flesh out as the creature slowly loses breath.
Like the Bambi Movie, could it be that we’re reading into an Artificial Intelligence that doesn’t really exist? Could it be that the experts are pushing down the throat of AI, sentience, morality, and consciousness that does not apply? This is why we say that Artificial intelligence can go quite wrong!
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