For What It’s Worth

I know I’m not the sharpest tack in the box, but I must have been living under a rock not to have appreciated the full magnitude of AI. For those of you who do not know what those initials stand for, they are Arti cial Intelligence. You know those little boxes with the pictures in them, that you have to click on to make sure you’re not a robot. ey ask you to identify the squares with the motorcycles or trees or school buses? Well, apparently AI’s cannot think for themselves so they get stumped at the pictures because they have not been programmed to respond to them. Not yet. ankfully they can’t think for themselves. (I use the word “they” as if they have taken on a human form, but to date, they are just computerized machines as far as I know). You know what else they can do? Rumor has it that they can apply for jobs, on sites such as INDEED, which makes life easier for the applicant. But what if they could think for themselves? What if they evolve into a thinking and acting machine one day. e reason I ask is because I understand that people such as Elon Musk are asking for a “pause” on further development of AI’s because these people are “concerned” about what they might be able to do in the future if the rapid rate they are evolving continues. Now I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word “concerned,” it freaks me out. To me that is a code word for “what until you see what happens next”. Imagine if AI’s could actually think for themselves and begin to run amok. I have friends who say that is impossible. I’m sure Orville and Wilbur Wright were told

by Dr. Mel , Ph.D.

the same thing when they took their rst ight. Besides, AI’s don’t have to think for themselves to do damage. All they have to do is get programmed some whacko who wants to do harm to people or the country at large. And I don’t think I have to tell you we have bad people living among us.

Of course the other side of the argument is that AI’s can do so much good in the health care eld, possibly coming up with solutions to medical problems and make advances that can save lives some day. at would be for the greater good, but there is potential to do the greater bad, and I don’t like it. On a personal level I am discouraged if not downright disgusted by the fact that AI’s have crept their way into the novel writing arena. If they are given a plot, some characters, and a genre, such as mystery or love story, they can come up with a pretty darn good book, and soon writers like me (who are still waiting to get my book on Amazon, but soon I hope) don’t have a chance, and what’s worse, when you, the buyer, purchase a book, you won’t know whether it was written buy a real author or an AI. AI’s have also made their way into the world of academia, and are doing homework, writing term papers and book reports, and even thesis papers as we speak. To me, all that might look good on paper, but it’s just going to make students stupid if they don’t have to do the work themselves.

Look, I don’t have all the facts, but from what I’ve heard, I’m getting a little nervous about the future. I mean we already have enough trouble communicating with each other with the addition of texting, and social media substituting for actual phone calls and good old fashion letter writing. Imagine this scenario. You want to have a ght with your husband, but he always bullies you into giving up. He can’t win an argument with you because once you start crying, he caves. But suppose each spouse programs their AI (in the future of course, when they live with you) to ght each other while you both go to bed. Each of you enter the necessary information, and your AI’s duke it out, without emotions. en, you wake up in the morning and nd out who wins the argument. Science ction? Maybe. But what if it isn’t? For what it’s worth, I like a good old fashioned argument where we say stupid things, and then make up. It keeps the relationship new and our brains in good working order. We win some, and we lose some. If I want to make a point, I certainly don’t want to have a machine take the credit, but that’s just me.

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