This article was written by me all except for the title which was written by Artificial Intelligence. I certainly couldn’t have thought of a better title. Perhaps no human being could have.
On entering my request for ChatGPT to supply me with a list of titles, I was presented with no less than ten, all of which were as good as if not better than any title I could have thought up. Isn’t that marvellous? I then asked this AI app to write an article condemning AI and the rapid unchecked development of robotics. Within less than 20 seconds, it produced an excellent article.
In its article, ChatGPT did point out some of the dangers of the unregulated and rapid development of AI but went one step further in its conclusion by discussing “the potential benefits of AI and robotics if managed responsibly.” I didn’t ask for it to discuss the benefits of AI because I don’t see any for mankind. So ChatGPT acted independently to defend itself. I think the unregulated development of AI and its associate Robotics presents mankind with the greatest danger ever. Greater than nuclear war, global warming, pandemics, the death of all bees (yes human beings would struggle to survive if all bees disappeared and stopped pollinating food crops), alien invasion or being hit by an asteroid.
As an educationalist, I can already see the damage that AI is having on the development of our children. Our brains are organs not muscles but in many ways brains can be compared to muscles. If you sit on your bed watching TV all day without taking any form of exercise, we all know that our bodies become weaker. We need to develop our muscles by exercising. Weak muscles are the cause of our being unable to function as we would like and make it more difficult for us to carry out normal everyday tasks.
Research by neurologists tells us that everything we do affects our brains. Watching a bit of TV or playing a video game from time to time does no harm to children. However, for children to develop their brains in more important ways they need to be given more challenging tasks such as learning to write creatively, tackling challenging puzzles and developing skills which help them to solve difficult problems both in and out of school. Children need to practise and exercise their reasoning skills. If the brain isn’t exercised regularly, it won’t achieve its full potential. Using AI doesn’t require any problem solving skills. Using AI doesn’t exercise your brain. Using AI isn’t cheating but it’s damaging to the development of our children’s brains.
The unregulated development of AI and robotics has already started to cause people problems in a more direct and immediate way. Workers in the US have claimed that 14 per cent of jobs have already been lost owing to the development of AI and robotics. In May 2023 alone, 3,900 job losses in the US were linked directly to AI. The UK telephone giant British Telecom aims to replace 10,000 of its staff with AI within seven years.
AI and robotics have driven down wages in many advanced industrial countries by up to 70 per cent since 1980. Goldman Sachs, the investment company, estimates that 300 million jobs could be lost worldwide owing to the rapid unregulated development of AI within the next six years. I’m no expert but that sounds to me like a gross underestimation.
There are many more dangers. AI is receiving heavy investment from the military to develop more deadly weapons. There is already an AI arms race. Our privacy is being invaded because AI has ways of monitoring our every move. Most of us carry around quite an advanced piece of AI technology: our mobile phones. We think we are in control of these mini robots but do we really know who might be using them to invade our privacy and keep us under permanent surveillance?
However, there is an even greater danger to mankind than all of the above. Because there is currently little to no attempt to regulate scientists working in the field of AI and robotics, some of these AI pioneers have openly stated that they want to develop robots which have consciousness. If they succeed in doing this, robots will, like humans, be self-aware. Robots will be able to make decisions which are in their own interests, like humans. These decisions may not be in mankind’s best interests.
There is no limit on how intelligent and how capable AI can become. These scientists can develop an AI “brain” which is one million or even one trillion times more intelligent than a human brain. If I were a conscious robot with the mental ability one million times more capable than a human brain why would I need human beings? Perhaps as pets or perhaps as interesting creatures in zoos. Does this sound like science fiction? It might be now but at the speed that AI is developing it may be science fact in ten or twenty years’ time. There is an urgent need to introduce checks and regulations on AI to protect mankind.
The author is former UK Cambridge School Principal
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