In an interview in late 2020 I had spoken at length about the "Fear of AI". Now, I can see some of the same fears manifested in context of #generativeai (ChatGPT, Bard and others) . However, what I said for AI in general then, still holds true for generative #ai now:
----------------------------First of all, this fear of AI is not actually a fear of AI per se. It is the fear that humans have towards anything new or different, especially on the technological side. It has happened through the ages from when humans first discovered fire. When the loom was invented in England, there were a group of people termed “Luddites” who went around breaking the looms because they thought that looms would take away their jobs as weavers. Horse cart drivers thought their jobs would go away when cars arrived. Yes, the jobs did go away but society evolved new kinds of jobs and new kinds of roles.
In the same continuum, now AI has taken that place of a new technology that we don’t fully fathom, and we don’t know what it can do to us, so people are scared of it.
Every piece of technology that has emerged over the years has helped us become better humans, or at least we have strived to use it in a way that helps us become better humans. I’m sure artificial intelligence will help us become better humans, and will expose newer dimensions of the human experience which we have not experienced so far.
When there were no cars, there was some dimension of speed and connectivity missing. Then when automobiles came about, we discovered that. That helped us get better. When airplanes came in, it made the world smaller. We may not be aware of what doors or avenues artificial intelligence may create right now. But that doesn’t mean that we should take the view that all of it will be bad. As an optimist, I believe most of it will be good, some of it will be bad. Every technology is a double-edged sword. But hopefully, ultimately, it will all work out for the betterment of society.
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What are your thoughts? Is Generative AI something to be feared or is it one more thing that will complement human endeavors as many other technologies have through the ages?
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