One quote is claimed to be from the British writer Eric Arthur Blair, popularly known in his pen name George Orwell. The saying goes:
If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.
The origin of this quote is however disputed, if it really did come from Orwell or what, but the Facebook page UNESCO attributed it to him in its post celebrating his 120th birthday. Regardless, I would like to have this applied in today's context:
Last year, we observed the explosive rise of the technology of artificial intelligence (AI). Media depictions of its reign tackle the supremacy of AI, particularly artificial general intelligence (AGI), and its destruction of humankind, and the idea traces back to the Industrial Revolution period; an early sentiment is expressed by novelist Samuel Butler in his 1865 essay Darwin among the Machines:
The upshot is simply a question of time, but that the time will come when the machines will hold the real supremacy over the world and its inhabitants is what no person of a truly philosophic mind can for a moment question.
Philosopher Nick Bostrom expressed this kind of fear regarding superintelligence in his 2014 book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, and figures such as Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and Elon Musk all agreed; Musk advocates the regulation of AI development to manage its power and to mitigate an AI apocalypse. Psychologist-computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, the "Godfather of AI", resigned from Google in May this year, and shared his worries about his work (AI) and its ability to surpass the capacity of the human brain.
We are now in the era of AI. We are playing with bots, and in crazy modes they are able to defeat even the best esports athletes. We call the names of Alexa and Siri for assistance, and they provide us the information we demand from them. My older siblings discuss AI: one is in the field of art, another in the academe. Some of us use applications like Midjourney to do the artwork (or "artworks"), and that generated a debate and gained ire from certain members in the art community. And then there is the AI chatbot ChatGPT, which is used to create even court cases and journal articles. Some pieces are found insightful, but it's not always the case, others are an obvious hodgepodge of statements. AI is even tried in exams (think of entrance and board exams), and it passes.
I'd like to compare the past decades I am alive in and today: knowing more seemed to be a luxury when the internet is new; information is limited in a public library or your plethora of books, and is far more scant if you refuse to read. Telecommunications companies then made internet connectivity a widely available commodity, and my country the Philippines is teeming with curious people ("mga usisero") and gossip-mongers, so it's now easier for us to know everything. This is a major stride in civilisation, and it'll be impossible for me to compose pieces like this; I always need to do open-source research, and internet is vital therein.
But a fear I have regarding AI or AGI is that we humans might leave it do everything for us, like artworks, cases and papers. We are already getting lazy: we have faster modes of transportation, we use less time from home to work, we're more sedentary, food like coffee and noodles are becoming instant, we're fatter than before (global obesity almost tripled from 1975 to 2021). Then we even want instant justice, so we rely on reckless politicians and forces like Duterte, Bukele and the Taliban, sacrificing liberty in the name of superficial security. And now we'll let AI write our papers, make our sources, and paint for ourselves; in the future we'll let it think for ourselves. Sometimes I feel lazy to think, but should it be always? Is this what is said "others will do their thinking for them"?
Convenience helped us, but life is never convenient, and we cannot make life forever convenient; we try and it will then backfire, and we'll just become slaves.
AI would be a great help to us, I don't doubt it, and having it regulated will mitigate its risks to humanity. Yet I appeal, that we use it wisely, that we still keep the concept of effort, and that we think, we let ourselves think, and let others think for themselves. Otherwise, you'll see the disaster right in front of you.
Article posted on 12 July 2023, 22:04 (UTC +08:00).
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