Tech writer Evgeny Morozov argues that today’s AI models draw their strength entirely from the works of actual humans and are built on vast amounts of human work stored at huge energy-burning data centers. AI is also nothing but complete. In a famous experiment, a painting bot returned the image of a salmon steak in water when asked to draw a swimming salmon.
The release of ChatGPT in November last year has also raised dramatic concerns about the effects of AI on human society. Renowned tech experts including Elon Musk from Tesla, Emad Mostaque from Stability AI, Sam Altman from OpenAI, Demis Hassabis from Google’s DeepMind, and Kevin Scott from Microsoft have published an open letter calling for an immediate pause on all AI development for six months.
According to Dr. Sayeed Ahmed, a consulting engineer and the CEO of Bayside Analytix, ChatGPT isn’t a research breakthrough. It’s a product based on open research work that is already a few years old. The only difference is that the technology was not widely available through a convenient interface.
Smaller entrepreneurs will soon develop better and more efficient AI-based models at much lesser costs, some of which are already available on GitHub, a popular repository for open-source non-commercial software.
Ahmed says that we need regulations for AI development, but it should be to ensure that AI technology remains open source and democratic. Another reason AI should be regulated is the way social media platforms have used it to fuel gender bias and extreme polarization. AI models will amplify both intentional misinformation (simple inaccuracies) and disinformation (false information) simply because they are trained on such data to produce more data (model cannibalism effect). Large language models can keep repeating fabricated and false information because of a phenomenon called ‘hallucination’ which independent watchdog NewsGuard has found in several online news portals.
All these could be handy in manipulating public opinion or creating biases to benefit those in power. That makes it even more necessary to regulate AI, Ahmed concludes.
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