Is AI Going out of Control?
Popular movies such as the Matrix, Terminator, Avengers: Age of Ultron and several others have explored the theme of machines taking over the world. This seemed far-fetched until the recent growth in AI which shows the possibility of this “movie-like” phenomenon becoming reality. Artificial Intelligence is taking over the world- from personalised shopping to writing law and medical exams, AI can do almost anything. While the increased use of AI has made life simpler in many ways, there are growing concerns on how advanced AI has become. So, is AI going out of control?
AI is the integration of human aspects of thinking into a machine, providing it with the ability of problem solving. Although AI has been around since the 1950s, the last few years have shown tremendous growth in the field with the AI tool ChatGPT changing the game. Although ChatGPT has been around for less than a year, it has already assisted in passing competitive exams, writing a full book in days, writing complex codes and much more. This gets one thinking about how much AI can do, because while AI tools are convenient to use, they also come with several ethical implications. An important one to consider is “singularity”, the possibility in which AI can one day exceed human capabilities. This is a far-off possibility and scientists can’t predict when and even if it will actually happen (Caltech Science Exchange). However, the situation is worrisome enough that top tech leaders such as Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, Evan Sharp and 1400 more have written an open letter urging AI labs to stop testing beyond GPT 4. Loss of control, misinformation, improper regulation and ensuring safety are some reasons listed in the letter (Millman 2023).
AI is also causing a major economic implication- unemployment. Companies are realising that jobs previously held by humans can be performed faster and more efficiently by machines, and at a much lower cost- no payment of salary or benefits required. The use of AI in daily work will be highly disruptive with a report stating that 300 million jobs can be replaced (Valance 2023). The new and advancing Generative AI which possesses “human cognitive abilities” (Times of India 2023) can generate images and audio, this is expected to be the latest threat to jobs. AI will replace writing and programming jobs with alarming statistics showing that 23% of financial jobs in China can be replaced and in 15 years, 90% of news will be written by AI (Forbes 2020). Use of AI in the creative world has led to a recent strike by the Writers Guild of America, due to writers fears that AI will replace script writing jobs in studios.
As AI continues to integrate itself into daily life and employment, further advancements should be paused until a robust regulation and control system over AI is implemented. Information generated by AI can be false, biased and the use of this unreliable data on a large scale can lead to vast amounts of misinformation which is potentially dangerous. The EU has introduced an AI Act to promote transparency in its usage, India will soon introduce a Data Protection Bill and the US is expected to use existing antitrust laws for regulation. AI is likely to grow further but without proper regulation, this growth can be detrimental.
Arshiya Khattar, the writer is a student of Economics at KREA University and pursuing her internship with VeKommunicate.