A lot of information is being generated by comparisons between AI bots. A hierarchy of sorts is emerging, but performance is highly variable. Selective use of subjects for comparison is another issue. Also, remember that these are first-generation “large language” AIs at work.
The New York Times did a pretty good job of comparing ChatGPT and Bard as executive assistants. ChatGPT did well, Bard didn’t really cut it on any level. The New York Times article is well worth reading because it also defines the parameters for comparison.
The natural inference from this comparison is that ChatGPT, which is now the previous iteration of that AI, has a much stronger learning base. You’d think so from the outcome.
What’s important about this inference is that the bar has been raised so high, so fast. This is like the pre-Windows 95 era, and you can expect the new tech to happen much faster.
The current intrusions into the consumer space are pretty tentative. If you have Bing, you’ll also note that there’s now an AI interface on the search engine. That was a very quick response to the AI breakout into the mainstream, and an attempt to get market share from Google. The obvious point to be made here is that the market is already driving the development, in that sense.
That’s not necessarily good news for the immediate future of AI. You could get a sort of AI domestic servant, not necessarily a high-bandwidth do-everything AI as a market model, sort of “for the housewives” AI.
Tech tends to do that. Most people want something to do all the basics and can live without the more advanced tech because they don’t really need it. So a cut-down version of AI is likely to take market share over a high-end AI.
What’s bad about that is that it reduces the demand for advanced development. Scientific AI, which gets very little attention, is a different type of AI that is ultra-functional and very useful for heavy lifting in the sciences. This “species” of AI is evolved to perform specialist tasks, and it’s doing very well.
If mainstream AI turns into a drudge job worker, you could wind up with dumbed-down purely consumer AI that’s not much more advanced than it is now in 2050. It will be able to do all the basics. The problem with that is that the AI will also have to catch up with current comms, tech innovations, new platforms, etc.
To reboot Moore’s Law – “The number of AIs will increase as the AIs evolve more capability.” That’s likely to mean a pretty high evolution rate and turnover in AI types and models. Which leads to an unavoidable question – How long can your AI be viable?
Add to this technotopia the usual bells and whistles attached to all types of tech. “Our AI can find your soul mate, do your washing, fix your tax return and housetrain the dog”.
Yeah, sure it will. A lot of superfluous and probably expensive crud is likely to come along for the ride. As with digital civilization in general, AI could easily be contaminated with whatever the equivalent of useless apps for AI will be.
Like the useless apps of the past, this will come out like low-quality dye in the wash. What’s likely to be far more important is the public image of AI they will create, which like those apps, will be largely fictional.
Points being:
- AI has proven its capacity at this current level, and no more.
- AI will evolve rapidly, finding new roles.
That’s it. That’s the sum total of predictable information. The rest is paid hype and hysteria. You’re looking at an almost blank slate, colored in by a couple of this year’s “enlightened” chatbots.
This almost total lack of hard information is sparking terror:
AI could replace people. So could other people.
AI could run businesses. That’d probably be an improvement in many cases.
AI could remove those lousy low-paid jobs nobody wants. So what?
What’s really different is that AI is a truly open-ended, real-time, multitasking class of tech. That’s what’s actually new.
Fear of AI is useless. People including Elon Musk are now actually calling for a halt to the training of AI. That’s not going to happen and nobody can make it happen. Google and OpenAI are definitely not going to let their competitors catch up. China is definitely not going to stop development.
The “answer” to AI is critical thinking. The world’s not good at that, and that’s likely to be the real problem.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
