By now we’ve all been apprised of the notion that Artificial Intelligence at some level will be a big part of our lives forever. Indeed, some of the advancements in that space are truly astounding, if not frightening. AI is not just about very quickly assembling facts to produce a desired result, its real strength is to be able to aggregate a series of known facts and then to extrapolate to a resultant answer without all the known pieces.
While most people are exposed to AI via social networks because tools are used to make amusing videos and pictures, the real use of the technology is for making “what if” calculations and designs, digitally, without having to expend resources to test them individually in real time. The AI part of it comes into play when the models correct themselves and ‘learn’ from mistakes. Thus, it’s not just that solutions are calculated once, it’s that AI has the ability to correct or adjust to new information. This notion was introduced during The Terminator films, in which robots automatically adjusted tactics to counter changes by their human attackers.
The very foundation for AI to work at all is the idea that things are logical or at least predictable given the known history of the issue. The gambling business has already caught on to this technology in order to frame betting odds for sports events. They are able to compile massive amounts of data, variables and historical tendencies to a likely result probability. As we know, human activity, while statistically probable, is not always precisely predictable, thus changes in variables will cause AI models to automatically adjust. This same ability to automatically adjust is useful for any and all kinds of applications, including agriculture, aerospace and industrial production. AI is being used extensively by large banks and trading concerns to manage and predict portfolios.
AI is about pattern recognition and extrapolating likely outcomes. It has (or should have) no bias on the outcome. It’s the equivalent of telling you that you will die in x time if you continue to eat French fries every hour. Sure, it can be wrong specifically, but not generally: The law of big numbers.
So, in a time when the use of machines to compile information and produce predictive outcomes based on facts and history, how is it possible for so many of the narratives in culture to continue being propagated? How can there be any doubt as the binary nature of the sexes? How can there be any discussion over the general physical advantages that males have over females?
Given the access to history and events, why is there still any debate on the harms inflicted on a host society by unfettered and uncontrolled immigration? What would an AI model conclude about the growing populations of Muslim communities inside western nations? What would they conclude about allowing drugs to be imported into urban communities? What would they conclude about education systems not focusing on basic thinking skills but instead on identity issues?
Why are there still people extolling the virtues of a collective society given the complete lack of evidence of its success in any nation throughout history? I can’t imagine an AI model suggesting to build papier mache bridges given the guaranteed 100% fail rate, yet society continues to push the socialist narrative as desirable…and people continue to cling to it like a teenaged girl to a rogue boyfriend.
Who knows if AI will save the world or if it portends a darker future for everyone? It’s sold as a marvelous tool for advancing man’s condition and that’s an easy sell. But human nature being what it is, we can also easily project that it will also be used for nefarious uses, from surveillance to control of currencies and populations. We’ve already heard as much from politicians in Europe and more and more in other western nations. Several in the AI space are sounding the alarm about AI’s capabilities, notably its capability to improve itself, obviating human input. Researchers including Robert O’Callahan at Google, Jacob Coxon at Anthropic and Zoe Hitzig from Open AI have resigned or expressed deep concern about the tunnel in which we’re entering. If only someone could figure out how to eliminate autocrats and the majority of politicians, that would be an historic advance for man.
