Artificial Intelligence is already having a negative impact on all of our lives.
The now underway ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (AI) era of our digital lives is changing everything. It is doing so at an immense cost – namely, trust. And without trust we have … what?
I’m far from alone in thinking about all this. To my mind and the minds of many others too, the rise of AI and its impact on vast swathes of all our lives undoes any ‘default trust’ any sensible person should and can have on what they see, read and hear.
A pre-AI search engine result was fundamentally based on keyword matching – you search for ‘purple widgets’, you get results that include ‘purple widgets’. Of course there was/is a lot more to it than that, but that’s the essence. With AI and in particular Generative AI (AI which can learn from data to generate content), we are dealing with an intelligence that can learn in its own right, that is to say, independently, and create – yes, create – content accordingly.
And it’s not just text content that’s been undermined. Images, music … it can all be made cheaply and easily because of AI.
Just stop and think about that. We are talking about a world where now everything is inherently untrustworthy. And by everything, we are talking about just that – everything, including all the news and ‘opinion’ web sites, along with all the social media channels. This isn’t some future reality. This is now.
So, how can we carry on with our lives?
I always try to keep in mind what I think of as the two whys. Why am I being told something? (Why is whoever’s telling it telling it, and what’s in it for them?) And why should I believe it? (Where’s the independent verification, and is whoever is providing that verification trustworthy in their own right?) If you like, I try to always pause to ask: what does someone or something hope to gain from some view or information or opinion or whatever.
Crucially, you also have to ask who is taking actual responsibility for what’s being said. If the source isn’t a real person with views you can get to know, and thus judge for yourself, you’re very, very likely better off ignoring it completely. And no, you can never get to know an AI creation.
This extreme caution can be applied to pretty well all aspects of life – though, yes, you have to be sensible. If someone tells you to be careful because a plate is hot, it’s unlikely you need to doubt them as they hand you your dinner. But don’t let commonsense undermine the scale of the threat of AI. In our increasingly AI-dominated life, ‘trust, but verify’ is a solid – and vital – approach to adopt. Taking what might have once felt is a natural choice and believing something or someone is now a fundamentally unsafe way to proceed. Remember, too, that one of AI’s great achievements is its ability to ‘disappear’. Even if the information you’re consuming and/or reacting to appears sensible, or mild, or innocuous at face value, that might well be because the AI that’s created it has succeeded in hiding its true AI nature.
Researching this topic was a wake-up call for for me. I confess I initially thought the warnings about the dangers of AI seemed over-dramatic. But the more I looked into it, so I came to realize that if anyone doesn’t realize what’s at stake that’s because they’ve not understood the scale of the threat. AI has an impact on everything and everyone.
Related item on an Unstated offshoot:
There are additional thoughts about trust and human nature in this ‘Getting Directions’ entry.
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