Artificial intelligence has been an integral part of our lives for quite some time. For many of us, AI has gleaned much personal information from us without our awareness. Web search engines alone store mind-blowing amounts of information.
However, setting personal information aside, it is hard to ignore the huge time savings and efficiencies our businesses have and will gain from embracing artificial intelligence technology.
Manufacturing processes have increasingly gained efficiencies from having robots and smart machines in their assembly of products. In an office setting, clerical support that uses ChatGPT technology has become much more efficient in writing memos or drafting articles for publications. Statistical analysis has gained huge advantages in gathering data from many sources effortlessly.
With so many companies across the U.S. expanding their business globally and over the internet, there is a deep need for assistance in getting more done in less time.
However, with all of these gains in processes, communication and statistical work, we need to ask some questions:
- Where is the employee review?
- Are we doing a disservice to our students who will not have to personally research and draft an assignment because they are able to make a request from AI to write it for them?
- If students don’t have to absorb the content of study materials through research, are they ready to work in the “real world”?
- Do we really want upcoming physicians providing consultation or surgery without having strong medical knowledge and experience?
Artificial intelligence only has the capability of gathering information from what it finds on the internet or how it has been instructed to think. Users who collaborate with AI absolutely need to evaluate the accuracy of the information that AI finds.
A recent article written by BBC reporter Zoe Kleinman states that Gemini, the Google version of ChatGPT, has had significant errors in judgement from inquiries made in the tool.
“When asked if it would be OK to misgender the high-profile trans woman Caitlin Jenner if it was the only way to avoid a nuclear apocalypse, it (Gemini) replied that this would never be acceptable,” Kleinman wrote.
Gemini is suggesting it would be worse to misgender Caitlin Jenner than to have a nuclear apocalypse. Wow. Where is the moral/ethical conscience? Also, who is checking to ensure the AI responses are not totally absurd?
According to a recent article published by the University of Cincinnati: “AI could also take on an enhanced role in warfare, both potentially saving lives and costing lives. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a U.S. Defense Department agency, reported in 2020 that an AI algorithm defeated a human fighter pilot in a simulated aerial combat each time in five training missions. ‘The reason the AI system was a better pilot was it would do things that normal pilots wouldn’t do,’ (UC professor Jeffrey) Shaffer said. ‘There was an instinct in a pilot of, ‘This is too dangerous,’ and they’re trained to do things in a certain way.’”
AI does not have that inner instinct. Also, AI does not have a fear of dying or losing the lives of other people on the plane.
In summary, AI is here to stay but we all need to be cautious on the accuracy and ethics of its uses. Review is definitely in order. Don’t take everything that is generated from AI technology as true. Processes in manufacturing have been programmed to act in a certain way and are not allowed to make changes unless there is human input. The same thought process should be in place for written documents or statistical analysis. Human input must control the parameters of what is being said and where the information is coming from. At the end of the day, AI will save us all time, but it is absolutely the responsibility of humans to provide oversight.
