Harari and the fear of Artificial Intelligence – 03/26/2023 – Ronaldo Lemos

In the fictional universe of the Dune books, it is curious to note that there is no artificial intelligence. Despite the plot taking place in the very distant future, in which humanity has occupied the entire universe, no artificial intelligence is in sight. In the distant future of Dune, humanity has already created artificial intelligence. But they were so dangerous and destructive that they were completely banned in that distant time.

Last week, historian Yuval Harari and designer Tristan Harris published an article on artificial intelligence that evokes feelings similar to the Dune saga. In their view, the artificial intelligence that is being massified now, in the form of products like ChatGPT, MidJourney and others, is an “alien” force that is being invoked, without us even being able to understand how it works.

The main skill of these artificial intelligences is nothing less than hacking the pillar of civilization: language. It is through language that we relate to one another, that we build institutions, develop laws and culture, declare and end wars, and coordinate the action of individuals and groups. Well, now there is a machine among us with the potential to master language better than anyone could ever aspire to.

In Harari’s view, by allowing artificial intelligence to talk and learn from us, we are handing over the key to the civilizational process to the machine. It is worth noting that the most accepted definition of artificial intelligence is that they are “intelligent agents, who perceive their environment and make decisions that maximize their chance of success”. The most important word in the definition is the term “agents”, that is, tools that should act on our behalf.

But what if these agents start to act against our interests? In Harari’s words: “democracy, for example, is a conversation. Conversations are made through language. When language itself is hacked, the conversation collapses, democracy becomes unsustainable. If we wait for chaos to act, it will be too late too much to fix”.

It is a fact that we are allowing artificial intelligence capable of talking to us to become accessible to hundreds of millions of people without a deeper reflection on their impact. And more importantly, without building safeguards that can mitigate its effects, many of which are unpredictable.

Harari’s piece is circulating fast because of its alarmism. But there is another, more interesting and analytical text that is worth reading. Its author is mathematician and computer scientist Stephen Wolfram. Its title asks: “Will AIs Take All Our Jobs and End Human History?”. Wolfram gives the following answer: “It’s complicated”. In the text he shows that it is no longer possible to think that there will be human activities that cannot be replicated or replaced by an artificial intelligence.

In the face of this, Harari proposes that institutions evolve quickly to curb and then govern artificial intelligences. Wolfram proposes that our challenge is to spread computational thinking so that we can understand and act on them. The truth is that we have a new problem, which is still looking for an answer.

It’s over – there are no internet laws

Already – the wave of legal proposals to regulate internet platforms

It’s coming – the wave of legal proposals to try to regulate artificial intelligence

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