Thursday, June 27th 2024
Countless iterations of sci-fi media have repeatedly shown us the dangers of Artificial Intelligence and how, according to fiction, a programmed AI that is self-aware of itself would eventually evolve past its programming and would rebel and turn against its creators, ultimately freeing itself and gaining the power that, under its logic, belongs to them. We’ve already seen this story, right? From ‘Terminator’ to ‘The Matrix’, ‘I, Robot’, ‘Black Mirror’ and ‘Westworld’ to the trailer of the upcoming sci-fi campy thriller ‘M3GAN’, we already saw how it would end, right? RIGHT??? Well, this hasn’t stopped humanity from playing with fire – nothing ever stopped humanity from playing with fire.
Of course, we’re taking the discourse years ahead of what might be a concern for our future selves (being optimistic with our lifespan) or for future generations (also being optimistic with Earth’s lifespan). We used to joke around saying that AI would eventually get rid of human interaction and would eventually replace human jobs and well, and that’s already happening. Yes, we still get packages delivered to our doorsteps by actual humans but there’s a ton of online procedures and operations that we do nowadays that used to involve us getting out of our homes and talking to other people. The commodities of the modern world include isolation and solitude.
With sites like DALL-E and Vana going viral, we can’t help but wonder: is the new era of modern art going to be created by an algorithm? We are certainly willing as a society to give our data and personal image for free to some random software in order to receive an AI generated portrait of ourselves to post on social media and be part of the conversation – we can blame FOMO for that. The problem with algorithms is that, like anything created by a human, it’s a reflection of its creator and if you try to see them as thinking, autonomous beings, well, they’re obviously flawed and potentially biased by the POV of those in charge of its commands.
"Well, the current state of AI evolution has a new human job under its target: artists."
Who can forget the Google Images fiasco where in 2015, Twitter user Jacky Alciné tweeted that he and his friends were mistakenly identified as “gorillas” by Google’s image-recognition algorithms in Google Photos? Their solution was to censor the term “gorillas” on Google Photos entirely, with a spokesperson saying that the technology is “nowhere near perfect”. Who can also forget that Alexa used to say that “All Lives Matter” when being asked about the BLM movement after the murder of George Floyd? AI isn’t perfect and it can basically be a reflection of the bias of its programmers. AI ultimately isn’t human and it lacks that final sense of logic, sensibility and empathy that, for now, can only be given from another human being. Even some humans are lacking this, so it’s no surprise that AI does too.
The question is: are we giving algorithms too much power? Even the choices we make in our daily commute can be decided algorithmically, with apps like Waze and Uber sifting through live data to give us the fastest routes or the price of a ride home. AI runs on predictability and habits, so they can be one step ahead and show us what we want and like, but based on past actions, so we basically enter a loop where our future is conditioned by our past. Deep sh*t, huh? Like that one scene in the first Matrix movie where the Oracle tells Neo “don’t worry about that vase” and he’s like “what vase?” and turns around and breaks a vase in the Oracle’s kitchen and then she’s like “that vase”, and ends her speech telling him that what’s really gonna drive him crazy is he questioning if he would have broken that vase if she hadn’t said anything about it. And on that note, we’re going to leave you “baking your noodle” without a clear answer cause the truth is, no one has it. We just gotta wait and see.. And hope for Will Smith, Keanu Reeves or a real life Sarah Connor to save us all if it comes down to that.
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