Timothy Birdnow

ChatGPT and other AI are an existential danger to Humanity. But do we simply ignore it?

I see it this way; Chat GPT is a tool, like a calculator or a word processor or whatnot. It is a fine servant but a dangerous and oppressive master. If used in the proper way it would be a good benefit, and those of us mature enough to understand that it is a tool whose primary purpose is to act as an aid to the human mind as opposed to the primary source of thinking can use it without any problem.

It's when such a gadget becomes the thinker rather than the thinkee that there are problems.

The young will use it to do their thinking for them, alas. They will take whatever the idiot gadget says as Gospel. They will misuse it, to do homework, to write letters and do things they need to learn to do for themselves. How much great literature will be lost because the kids used such tools and never acquired writing skills?

And since such a device can be gamed to promote certain worldviews the machines can and will give biased answers - which will be believed by the young, who have absolute faith in the technology.

Me, I wouldn't use it, because I both know my own mind and also have adequate writing talent to not need a machine's help, but that's not true of everyone. I have no problem with people using this technology judiciously. But we must remember that this stuff will only grow more and more complex over time, and eventually we will build our own false god from it.

That is rather the point of "the singularity" after all; that Man will merge with machine and become demigods. And that will be the worst tyranny that ever existed, human beings crushed under the metal heel of the machine.

I think long-term these gadgets are a horrendous danger to the human species. But so was gunpowder. So were bows and arrows. So were every major technological advancement. We have to learn to control them, not let them control us.

Sadly, our modern religion is Scientism, a worship of science and technology, and so all restraints have fallen by the wayside. The Covid pandemic is a prime example; a bunch of Viktor Frankensteins playing with the genome of a potentially dangerous virus just because they could. God keeps bailing Mankind out but eventually He will let us take the consequences of our actions.

This is a very dangerous technology and we must learn to use it and restrain it. We can't make the Djihn go back in it's bottle.

The problem was and is the depravity of the human heart. We are attempting to create a god, and that god will have our flaws even while being more capable than  are we.

How many people will use these machines for deep fakes? To frame enemies, neighbors, political rivals?  How much will these machines take over in our lives?  Humans loathe thinking on their own now.

So I believe we can use them and should, so as to find ways to incorporate them into society without them taking over.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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