Avid readers of The Captain’s Log will recall other articles on the subject of AI – articles that ranged from anxious to hopeful. I find myself with a hopeful perspective on the subject of AI, born out of confidence and a growing understanding for how AI systems work. I truly believe that humanity is irreplaceable and that AI cannot surpass our unique human greatness. As students, we worry about our place in the world and I’m here to tell you: we’re not going anywhere.
I hold high hopes for our chances against this wave of AI, because these technologies are far away from the self-learning capabilities that would constitute “true” AI. Instead, these machines, coming out of places like OpenAI, are built upon machine learning. Unlike coming up with actual thought, these machines are instead fed enough information that they can establish patterns and correctly predict the next part of that sequence. Most of the time this can look normal, even insightful, but testing around the edges of what it’s comfortable with can quickly reveal that AI is a machine like any other.
Still, the sheer amount of data being poured into these AIs are allowing them to better serve whatever function is required of them, whether that be tailoring advertising to a pool of social media users, generating misinformation on behalf of hostile foreign governments, or simple phishing schemes targeting the elderly. There is some concern that in the development of AI we are displacing the importance of training human capital in exchange for more convenient, reliable tools. There is even some anxiety among students and faculty that with the readily accessible convenience of these AI tools, basic skills aren’t being developed or are simply not needed anymore.
Even so, human ingenuity and decision-making remains absolutely important in any activity of substance. AI will never be able to replace an award-winning writer, direct a movie, sculpt marble or create any truly original work at all. We shouldn’t even want AI to be able to do these things, Art of any kind is an expression of our humanity, to have art be contorted and puppeted by a machine is distasteful. I hope we don’t see the day that these machines can prove me wrong. Discovery is at the root of the sciences and it’s not hyperbole to say that machines can never discover anything, it can’t even think as we do. It might make a great calculator, but a skilled mathematician is going to need to be the one operating it through complex equations. When someone goes to therapy, I doubt they’d want to sit down with the latest model of an AI Chatbot and vent about their problems – no there needs to be a person there.
Living, thinking, humans are irreplaceable. AI, if used responsibly, will not replace anything but the most tedious work, and if anything it will be a useful tool in unleashing human potential. For that reason, it is safe to say that while AI might look and talk like us, it cannot think like us nor can it do the things that we do, it can only pretend to. AI is not our replacement, they’re our replicants.
