Growing Too Powerful? – Concerns About AI
AI is evolving right in front of our eyes, being one of the scariest cool things in recent history. Ever since ChatGPT exploded onto the scene, people all across the world have been dazzled. Social media has been all over artificial intelligence, creating AI art for themselves or even asking AI to create a picture of the Trump arrest even though it hasn’t occurred. ChatGPT has been continuously tested by everyday people, with some using it to fill out their March Madness bracket although one tester got Baylor as their champion, which was wildly incorrect. While everyone is having fun with AI, companies like OpenAI have continued to innovate and create improvements to existing AI models.
The most recent development is GPT-4, a larger model that can now accept image and text inputs while aiming to be more accurate. GPT-4 is the most advanced artificial intelligence that OpenAI has released, and despite all of the excitement there is a fair share of concern. On Wednesday, many tech executives and artificial intelligence experts penned a letter to AI businesses to pause development of AI tools for the safety of the Earth. Notable people included Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and AI trailblazer Yoshua Bengio, and it is the first time a large public statement like this was made. Their proposal was to pause development for about six months in order to set safety standards that can prevent AI from going out of control, and they called GPT-4 the final straw, asking for companies not to train systems stronger than that for a while. This comes as many tech businesses throughout the world are starting to quickly incorporate AI systems into their business, whether it is Microsoft with Bing or Google with Bard, and it poses two problems. If AI development continues to occur, the well-known fear of computers destroying humanity altogether in order to achieve their ultimate goal is certainly possible as these systems become smarter and smarter, and even if you don’t view it as an existential crisis Goldman Sachs estimates that 300 million jobs could be affected. Then again, if companies in the US halt their AI development, foreign adversaries like China could continue to develop and innovate their AI technology, which puts the US in a dangerous disadvantage as this is one of the most powerful tools of technology. It all boils down to what Max Tegmark, a physics professor at MIT, calls a “suicide race” more than an arms race as this technology has so many pros, yet fatal flaws.
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I am not a financial advisor and my comments should never be taken as financial advice. Investments come with risk, so always do your research and analysis beforehand.
