Last updated on 28th June 2023
The group met in the Gallery as usual. The topic was “AI” (artificial intelligence), more concretely ChatGPT and similar programs,
The video is here:
The speaker pointed out that vast amounts of information are placed in AI on a massive scale but this does not mean that AI is intelligent or has common sense. It sometimes gives very stupid answers.
Websites which can now be found through a search engine, will in the future only be accessed via AI and if the website is not a part of a plugin for say, the search of news on Madeira or art galleries in Funchal, then they won’t be found anymore. Business owners may have to pay to AI companies to be found via paid plug-ins.
Human input will be lost with AI, it is scary. It will be more difficult to distinguish between truth and falsehood because AI is very good at inventing things, and many human beings are not good at using common sense to see if an information can be true (the pope dressed in a skiing outfit!?).
Voice generated AI can copy the voice of a woman and say, call her grandma and say “Granny, I have been abducted, you have to pay ransome for me.” Such thefts on unsuspecting older people will become more common.
“Mimo” “games” are already compelling children online to perpetrate small crimes and move them on to bigger crimes and even suicide. In the future, an AI driven game could copy the parents’ voice and lead them more toward to all kinds of obnoxious actions.
Humankind is already veering toward more nefarious things. There are people in the internet who watch moneys being tortured for “fun”, AI can be used to produce more sociopaths.
AI is already out of control because its actions cannot be verified by humans. AI could plan to kill all humans at some point. Software engineers, even the developers of AI, are warning against their own product. It should be unplugged now.
People are gullible to all kinds of false information because life is too confusing, and religious guidance is crumbling. Spiritual questions such as “Why am I here? What is my purpose in life?” need to be asked, and getting to the answers takes effort and persistence. A trait that most human beings do not have. More and more, people are taking drugs, just to get out of life’s confusion for a few hours.
Evil deeds stem from fear, AFD voters in Germany (“Chega” in Portugal) are scared to lose their livelihood and property. AI will eliminate a lot of middle-class jobs.
With fear, aversions come to light, that then creates hatred for others which the person may never have met.
People who voted for Trump and “Chega”, are less cosmopolitan, many of them do not travel outside their known paths. In Spain: “Where can we get a Germany sausage?”
On the good side, young people are more “European” and bring with them less aversion against what seems to be “foreign”.
Wealth is more visible and obscener, creating envy in the simple folks. With AI, the jobs, many in health care, will be veering toward comfortable life styles, As long as AI can keep the working population in a comfort zone, these people will not complain or strive to change things. Amusement parks should proliferate, and artificial AI games become more accessible to the simple people. Bread and Games.. Revolution may not take place.
Is AI aware of itself? Answer by Rupert Spira: it is made of consciousness, like we are (all things are based in consciousness, not on atoms) but it is not self-reflective.
What is the remedy? Common sense. Children are much mor intelligent that AI, because they learn by trial and error and experiment. They base their next steps on real life experience which AI does not have. Even children will always be smarter than AI.
We can unplug and refrain from using the internet. We can try to live of the grid, autonomous. The Google search engine can be replaced with “DuckDuckGo” really, a good search engine!).
On getting results from AI on a question, we can ask AI on the topic of religion or spirituality, and it will have no answers because it cannot deal with morals or ethics. It has no values.
So a good question might be:
“What is your information good for?”
It might not be able to answer. This can reveal and distinguish AI answers to everybody, even simple people.
(Sherlock Holmes in “Elementary” asks the AI “What is love ?” Answer: “It is a concept and therefore useful.”)
AI does not know kindness and cannot take unpredictable decisions we humans can take.
Question:
“Is this kind?”
could be a good answer to a proposal raised by AI.
Humans argue with themselves, AI never questions its answers. Another question politicians, business owners and rich people should ask themselves anyway is also a good question for AI:.
“Is this useful for the community?”
Ursula (ullamad at mailbox.org) www.madeiraconsorcio.com
