2/17/2023
Artificial intelligence is everywhere nowadays and has plenty of useful applications. ChatGPT, for example, has helped me learn Python (a beginner-friendly programming language) more effectively than any book or video. ChatGPT can use specific examples you provide and explain them. If you don't understand something, just ask it. Despite the potential advantages, why am I, among others, anxious about the future of artificial intelligence?
ChatGPT explaining a simple Python tip calculator code
I signed up for Notion's AI and ChatGPT back in November 2022. At the time, Notion had a 45,000-person waitlist, while ChatGPT was instant - no waiting required. It only took a month for the Notion waitlist to work through 45,000 people. Now that AI is in the news headlines, people's interest in it has grown. As of writing, the waitlist for Notion AI is over a million, and my step-sister has just applied to ChatGPT, which has around 1.5 million people on its waitlist. If you're new to AI, be prepared to wait. Everyone is going to have access to AI eventually — for better and worse.
If you have ChatGPT, you may have already noticed this. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, plan to let more people use ChatGPT. When servers get busy, they're going to push users to sign up for "ChatGPT Plus" for $20/month. I won't go into the trend of everything being a subscription service nowadays (a quote app I like used to like wanted $2/month… for quotes). I understand they need revenue to run servers, but take a look at the premium members features list — it's sparse. My fear is that it'll become subscription-only in the future — they might just be testing the waters now.
Microsoft and Google have both adopted AI into their search results, which may sound helpful. However, the drawbacks outweigh the advantages. Read this full article for more information, with an excerpt that reads:
“Shares of Google's parent company lost more than $100 billion in market value on Wednesday after its Bard chatbot ad showed inaccurate information.”
ChatGPT Plus — the unfortunate future of AI
I’m not sure which aspect I’m more worried about: that an AI gave a wrong answer, or that there’s too much money (and thus, greed) tied up with AI search results.
“…It is not the ethical implications of providing readers with misinformation that worries them, but rather the fear of Google noticing the poor quality of the AI's work and subsequently cutting off the supply of search results that Red Ventures depends on for revenue. The company has been utilizing CNET to become an AI-powered SEO money machine, pushing readers to click on affiliate links for credit cards and loans, as well as EDU sites that encourage prospective students to enroll in costly colleges. The head of AI content for the EDU division has even gone so far as to publicly boast about the company's "dirt cheap" AI, which can produce articles for less than a penny per word, ultimately generating millions of dollars in revenue.” —”It’s Free Real Estate “
“Stability AI has copied more than 12 million photographs from Getty Images’ collection, along with the associated captions and metadata, without permission from or compensation to Getty Images, as part of its efforts to build a competing business. In this lawsuit, Getty alleged that Stability AI went so far as to remove Getty’s copyright management information, falsify its own copyright management information, and infringe upon Getty’s “famous trademarks” by duplicating Getty’s watermark on some images.” —Getty Sues Stability AI For Copying Photos
If you're a reasonable person, this should be a cause for great concern. On the surface, the idea of an AI selecting what information to show you in search results may seem beneficial, but remember that AI isn't perfect and never will be. At worst, it could even unintentionally censor certain topics (China would certainly like that). After all, it's simply a language learning model which is trained on data. If enough people believe, search for, and post articles about how the US 2020 elections were fraudulent, will that become the truth? If you think misinformation is bad now, I'm afraid it's only going to get worse.
“From now on, instead of showing you a dozen webpages with instructions for opening a can of beans, machine-learning droids will just tell you how to open one. And if you believe that effective search is what made the internet the most important technology of the 20th and 21st centuries, then that seemingly simple change should give you the shakes. The collateral damage in this war of the machines could be nothing less than the obliteration of useful online information forever.” —Don’t Trust AI Clones
“In 2018, a video of former President Obama calling President Trump a “total dipshit” went viral online, causing an uproar. The catch? It wasn’t real – it was a deepfake created by Buzzfeed to show what was possible with AI technology, and to warn people to be skeptical of what they see.” —AI 2041 (book)
AI can do tasks faster and for no money. Business’s main motivation is profits, so why would they not replace workers with an AI? AI-driven automation is already beginning to replace many jobs that used to require human labor. With more and more AI-driven automation, it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to find jobs.
This could (and probably will) lead to a massive unemployment crisis, with millions of people out of work and unable to support themselves. It could also lead to a widening of the gap between the rich and the poor, as those with the capital to invest in AI-driven automation will benefit, while those without the resources to do so will be left behind.
Many jobs will also likely not follow the traditional full-time employment model that we are familiar with today. Instead, more employers are expected to expand their remote workforces and rely on contractors for the bulk of their personnel needs. Hopefully you like the hustle lifestyle.
“Researchers at security firm Check Point Research reported Friday that within a few weeks of ChatGPT going live, participants in cyber-crime forums — some with little or no coding experience — were using it to write software and emails that could be used for espionage, ransomware, malicious spam, and other malicious tasks.” —Poser’s First Virus