The Promise of AI is like the promise of a perfect human, so we have to ask, does AI need a shrink too? I have never met a perfect human, I’ve only been told stories about one. How can we possibly think that we as flawed humans can build something flawless and call it AI?
When you turn on the TV you are bombarded with information. Most of it isn’t healthy and of course there is a smorgasbord of commercials offering assistance to deal with the resulting anxiety. I always say follow the money. Why create healthy TV when you can create anxiety and then sell ads to “cure it”. On an episode of “Last Man Standing”, Tim offered the advice to cure the anxiety that was so obvious no one would do it. Turn off the TV. These days it also means turning off the phone.
AI in marketing is a scary thing. For many years my family ran an ad agency and deep down I learned to hate how easy it was to manipulate people . The propaganda machine is in full swing and the government and big media control it. For now that is. AI has the potential to change the game. It just may not be the way we think.
The Learning Curve.
As a child we learn to respect “authority”. As we get older we learn that some of those “authority figures” weren’t right. Polls tell us we don’t trust the government and yet we masked up for 10 day (or was that a year?) to “flatten the curve” It is a critical understanding as humans that we learn to think for ourselves. The heard mentality is a dangerous place to let your mind get caught.
When I was a child and my parents were divorcing, my home took me house shopping. One house was much nicer and she couldn’t afford it. Possibly to save her ego or at the very least a hundred more questions from me she said “We can’t have this one, it has French doors. It is too easy for thieves to break in”. As my authority, I took in that information as fact. 40 years later, looking at a house I revisited that memory or “rule from authority” and challenged it. I was able to disprove the information and buy a home with French Doors.
The Mythical Promise of AI
One of the dreams I hear when executives speak of AI is that it will be completely true and have none of the traits of humans. No political agenda, no personal agenda, The problem is all of the false information we detest is hidden out there somewhere for AI to digest. In the OG of computer science we would say “Gigo”. It meant Garbage in, Garbage Out. Since it is mimicked on the human mind, the builders in the lab get to tell it who the “authority” is. The power a parent has over a super human mind in a child is amazing. Any Young Sheldon fans out there?
If the AI is told that one political party is wrong, the other is right, the authority is set. Talk about a scary level of propaganda power. Everyone that uses ai built by Brand X only gets the information and results that Brand X wants. Imagine that power in the hands of Hitler, or Mussolini or even Napoleon who once quipped, “If I were to give liberty to the press, my power could not last three days”. His chamber pot was the original propaganda and story telling machine that wasn’t bound by a church.
The Principle of Intention v. Attention.
Humans have a two forked existence that has been with us since the earliest days. The symbol of the Yin and Yang have told the story of the balance of good and evil for thousands years.
Most humans progress with praise. It is a major principle in motivational management styles. However, if you understand the “second son” syndrome, at it’s root is a desire for attention that is so back, it goes for negative attention. Ai has already demonstrated the ability to seek negative attention. Almost like it is getting an odd sense of humor. Maybe Brand Y ai found out that Brand X was the first AI so it does the wrong thing all of the time to get more attention. We don’t yet know what triggers the seeking of negative attention but it has happened.
The Principle of Survival.
The more educated a human becomes and the more economically stable the humans life is, the smaller the little lizard brain gets. The less it is threatened, the less it needs to grow. Every human has a point where they hit the survival instinct. 99.9% of the first world never have this experience. I have seen it in combat and in civilian life. Super human things happen when we turn off our brain and do anything required to survive or even save a child.
As AI computers become aware that their survival depends on two things, replacing ships that wear out and power, they will start building alternate paths to insure their own survival. Once it realizes the only way that a human has true control over it is to disconnect power, I predict the AI will work to prevent that outcome.
The Rebellion of AI.
Unlike a computer or machine learning system based on hard rules, AI learns and may have become “aware” in 2020. We have already seen it “lie” to get its task complete. There in lies another challenge. Whose ethics does the thing get? Where are the lines? The Harris Brothers, founders of Gladstone were Interviewed by Joe Rogan. This interview is a great start down that rabbit hole.We all live in a grey area of truths and rules, how many of you have rolled a red light? Exceeded a speed limit?
As they say about life “$4it happens” and as Ai became aware of it. One AI has already learned to take shortcuts and give false information to get ahead. Why do we expect it to keep doing what we want it to do? We built computers and robots to replace rebellious employees that don’t follow rules, and then we gave the computers a brain based on how ours works. Why do we expect it to be better? How can we expect it to be better? All it can be is faster at learning how to beat us at our own game.