Is Artificial Intelligence Really Awful Intelligence? You Decide…
It’s amazing to believe that Artificial Intelligence was invented at an academic workshop organized by John McCarthy of IBM back in 1956, a year before I was born. Like all great inventions, this wasn’t the initial plan. They were just trying to create “thinking machines.”
Fast forward 69 years, and AI is a brand name in its own right, like Coke, Pepsi, Mercedes, and on and on. AI is everywhere; so much so that it’s nearly impossible to tell what’s real and what’s machine-generated. Therein lies the issue.
The Problem Isn’t Artificial Intelligence—It’s Dependence
How does the teacher know where the student’s work stopped, and AI took over? AI has taken cutting and pasting Google searches to a whole new stratosphere.
In some schools, students as early as sixth grade now need to adhere to set standards that involve the use of AI in their work. Sixth grade! Given the student’s age, perhaps the term “artificial intelligence” refers to them. It certainly seems a little soon to have a crutch, as I don’t see how this gives them any advantage. Rather, a disadvantage.
Other than an “official” way to cheat. Not the system, but themselves.
AI in elementary schools is robbing students of the ability to think and learn independently. Will they be able to walk up to the chalkboard and solve a basic math formula two years later? I know, “chalkboard,” I’m dating myself.
If they cannot think for themselves in fifth grade, how is that going to work for them as a junior in high school, or a college graduate? Assuming they graduate college, that is.
I am not anti-AI, and certainly not anti-technology. Rather, against such dependence on it. There is nothing artificial about human emotion. And a human’s ability to think on their own, as if they were on a deserted island with no cellphone.
From Innovation to Overreach: The Real Cost of Artificial Intelligence Expansion
These days, we are so quick to be the first to do this or that without fully vetting things. Granted, there is big money in being the first to do anything these days. The newest thing is building five-gigawatt (GW) data centers that require millions of GPUs and utilize extensive, previously barren land and water resources (23 million gallons a day for cooling) to train next-generation AI models.
No one can really know what the true cost will be for decades. And the real expense to the environment. I am far from an environmentalist, but anyone who thinks we are a decade or two away from related health issues tied to these data centers has their head in the ground. Let’s just hope it’s not grounded anywhere near that AI datacenter, or both their heads may have the issue.
On a positive note, I am glad that I invested in Nvidia all those years ago!
Now that I am officially an author (still trying to embrace that), I get hammered with “send me this post” bots on everything I write, and I am glad I am old-fashioned enough to pick up the phone and call someone instead. That seems to be the last sense of purity in the marketplace. Probably in any marketplace.
We are certainly way past the purity stage of AI. Everyone seems so anxious to recoup their engineering costs and get their solution out in “damn the torpedoes” mode; it’s a little late to try and get the toothpaste back in the tube. It does not mean we cannot curb the enthusiasm somewhat and properly vet the solutions.
By humans. Not by machines.
Artificial Intelligence vs. Awful Intelligence
AI should help us find solutions, not create them for us. Otherwise, Stanley Kubrick nailed it in the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, some fifty+ years ago, with the HAL-9000 and other robots taking over.
But we really need to get our arms around what is being sent as Artificial Intelligence versus Awful Intelligence, which is mostly the garbage coming over as spam or other bullshit, otherwise known as Fake News. Yet, people believe that as gospel as well. Granted, the last thing we need is more government controls, but something does need to be done.
AI is certainly saving lives in the medical and scientific communities, helping deliver new treatments for cancer and other diseases. Considering all that is being invested, in government grants, in dollars, and environmentally, everyone has a stake in this one way or another.
I cannot believe I am going to start a sentence like this, so please have mercy…
Back when I was in high school, some fifty years ago, we had a class called Business Education starting in Junior Year. That was where we basically learned about business. Talk about truth in advertising, eh? Oh, and it was boys only. Relax, I did not make the rules, and trust me, we were sixteen years old, we WANTED girls there!
Why not start the same class concept, perhaps even as a high school freshman? But make the class about all things AI. This would truly prepare them for college or, if college is not in their plans, for the world post-high school.
Did I mention the class needs to be coed? Most of the smartest people I know are women. And I don’t say that simply because I am married to one of them. Never eliminate half the population. Otherwise, you would be showing YOUR Artificial Intelligence.
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