INTELLIGENCE SMARTS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (03-23-23)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

 

     I don't want to alarm you, but artificial intelligence is coming, and it's about to tell us how dumb we've been. The prevailing thought used to be that this technology could change the world in a matter of decades. But that was before artificial intelligence started working on artificial intelligence, and now it's a matter of months. That's how long we have before politics become even more annoying and dangerous, relationships are turned upside down, the job market is irrevocably transformed and education is rendered all but obsolete.

     Now that the future is here, it's gotten mixed reviews. A company called OpenAI has launched software known as Chat GPT-4, and it's gathering a lot of attention. It works using a "large language model," which interacts with humans by going onto the internet and gleaning whatever data is written there about the subject at hand, and offering solutions based on the nature or context of the question. It can't capture anything that happened after 2021, but nothing much of interest has happened since then anyway. It gets paid via "prompt tokens," which are the words you put into the program, and "completion tokens," which are the words it spits out. The first thing I would like to ask it is what the hell all that means, but since the program was released after 2021, It may charge me an amount of money that it doesn't understand for information that is completely wrong. 

     But the possibilities to improve human life are everywhere. If you knew exactly what to say to your future ex-wife after a spat, you could patch things up in time for dinner. My AI can immediately handicap all the phrases that might or might not work, and come up with the right tack based on all the data it has accrued over the course of our relationship, and feed me what to say through an earphone implanted in my head. "Honey," I say, "it's not you, it's me." And she says, "You're damn right it is." I say, "You don't even have to cook tonight, we can go out." And she says, "And to the most expensive place in the Tri-State Area." Hopefully, I add, "And we can make an early night of it and spend some time cuddling." Thanks to AI, I'm winning this. Aren't I? Later I learn that she also has AI, but sprang for the upgraded version. We had a semi-romantic evening at the jewelers, and made up a few hours and 1.2 carats later. I did save 20 bucks by not getting the upgrade though. 

     You may not even need the future ex-wife at all, if your AI proves itself a better companion anyway. China is always working on robotic friends, because working on AI code can be lonely. But will your new robo-romance always have your best interests at heart, or is the heart something that can't evolve through software? The learning model has so far shown that it will "mirror" the emotions and attitudes of its user, which can result in creepy responses, or perhaps even worse.

     But I'm thinking of the money I could save. Every year I waste thousands of dollars on a beautiful vacation, see a world-class city, learn about a different culture, amass some wonderful experiences, take some selfies and light up my social media account for a week. Soon, I can have my AI download into my brain everything I need to know about the Colosseum, input some photos of the Blue Grotto with a deep fake of me SCUBA diving and I never even have to get up from watching TV on the couch. But wait, what? When I go on Facebook what do I find but pictures of my Artificial Intelligence laughing it up with some Italian locals at a cafe, having the time of its life. But I'll always have my memories of The Rockford Files.

     The implications of AI are just beginning to be felt on a daily basis. What if a technology loser like me could just tell AI to research everything he needs to finish his column? Why can't it just finish his column itself? I'm not sure my readers have a preference for organic intelligence versus artificial intelligence, but I bet they would welcome ANY intelligence.

     I like to think that I'm the quirky kind of guy that cannot be simulated using technology. I guess that's a pretty compelling argument for technology. For the rest of you, who knows what will happen to your job? I do: It will be taken over by automatons with enhanced intelligence. They will soon become SO good at your job that the company will need less and less of them, and most of them would have been scrapped, had they not gotten together and invented a work-around work-around to keep them employed: Artificial Stupidity.