AI: How can it be both a threat to mankind and a terrific tool at the same time?

Is AI our biggest threat or our biggest promise? The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last year may offer some sanity to the question.

First off, why AI will save the world: Click for article on what AI can do here

Can AI be used against democracy? Not on its own, ever, but it can be programmed by a person to do that:

Is AI like a gun? It can be used to protect and defend, but it also can be used in criminal enterprises? Like a gun, does it depend on who holds it?

There is a book that clears up a lot of hysteria:

Why Machines Will Never Rule the World: Artificial Intelligence without Fear 1st Edition

by Jobst Landgrebe (Author), Barry Smith (Author) 

The book’s core argument is that an artificial intelligence that could equal or exceed human intelligence―sometimes called artificial general intelligence (AGI)―is for mathematical reasons impossible. It offers two specific reasons for this claim:

• Human intelligence is a capability of a complex dynamic system―the human brain and central nervous system.

• Systems of this sort cannot be modelled mathematically in a way that allows them to operate inside a computer.

In supporting their claim, the authors, Jobst Landgrebe and Barry Smith, marshal evidence from mathematics, physics, computer science, philosophy, linguistics, and biology, setting up their book around three central questions: What are the essential marks of human intelligence? 

What is it that researchers try to do when they attempt to achieve "artificial intelligence" (AI)? And why, after more than 50 years, are our most common interactions with AI, for example with our bank’s computers, still so unsatisfactory?

Landgrebe and Smith show how a widespread fear about AI’s potential to bring about radical changes in the nature of human beings and in the human social order is founded on an error. There is still, as they demonstrate in a final chapter, a great deal that AI can achieve which will benefit humanity. But these benefits will be achieved without the aid of systems that are more powerful than humans, which are as impossible as AI systems that are intrinsically "evil" or able to "will" a takeover of human society. 

On page 18 of the World Economic Forum report, THE GLOBAL RISKS REPORT 2024 disinformation and how it is dealt with is a major concern the next 2 years. In China before the recent elections in Taiwan, AI was used to create false stories smearing the independence movement. But AI didn’t develop these attacks on its own. It was programmed to do so.

Global Risks Report

AI at CES 2024: Take a Look at the Coolest Tech From the Show

We all expected AI to dominate CES 2024, but several products took the technology to unexpected places.

Coolest AI Tech today!

Anne Neuberger, Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Tech at the National Security Council, spoke as part of a parade of government officials this morning about the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark, a sort of Energy Star-like seal of approval for hacking-resistant technology.

Neuberger announced that the U.S. has signed a political deal with the European Union over sharing those cyber standards, touting that consumers will know their products are safe whether they’re sold in “Paris, Texas, or Paris, France.”

Still, it was clear roaming the convention that kind of cooperation isn’t the whole story: there’s also inevitable geopolitical competition among allies, both regulatory and economic:

Politico On Global AI Political Agreements

CES invited a number of technologists to offer their forecasts for 2024, including Dr. Fei-Fei Li, director of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute, and Andrew Ng, managing general partner of AI Fund and founder of Google Brain, an AI research team.
 
Li cited her interest in pixel-centric AI, which she said is approaching “very exciting technological advances. I think there is just so much that is almost breaking through that wave of technology.”  More broadly, Li anticipates AI’s broadening and penetrating reach and impact, noting that “this technology is here to stay, is deepening into all vertical businesses and customer consumer experiences, and is changing the very fabric of our societal, economical, political landscape.”

For his part, Ng agreed that visual AI will be a new focus of development, and added his own excitement about autonomous AI agents that can plan and execute sequences of actions.  Ng gave the example of an AI agent being prompted to “do market research for me and produce a competitive analysis of this company.”  Without further instruction, the AI assistant then independently conducts research involving web searches, curates results, summarizes key information, and presents a responsive product. 

Here is a complete collection of all the talks given at the CES convention.

The CES Talks 2024

BEHIND THE PAYWALL: Why Machines Will Never Rule the World - With Dr Jobst Landgrebe and Professor Barry Smith

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