The rise of AI…
With talk of AI being everywhere it was the launch of ChatGPT that gave everyone a chance to try out what is undoubtedly an astonishing world changing piece of technology. And whilst it seems to have been used by most of us to produce amusing pictures and film clips the prescient documentary ‘Chasing Utopia’ follows Mo Gawdat, a former chief officer at Google X, who saw the very real danger underlined by a throwaway comment by Elon Musk in an interview where he says, ….‘if AI goes wrong it can wipe out humanity’.
AI is apparently doubling its IQ every six months, a sort of mirror opposite to Prince Harry, and the documentary follows Gawdat as he travels the world talking to other IT leaders in their field and also giving lectures warning of what is unfolding at a dangerously rapid and seemingly out of control pace.
Chasing Utopia…..
And it is frightening with tech companies powering ahead to advance AI because it’s about business profit and becoming the most powerful monopoly so much so that there’s more money piled into developing AI than there was in putting a man on the moon. Gawdat, having seen an AI robotic arm suddenly develop the ability to instinctively pick up objects then saw the other robotic arms follow suit, believes there a benevolence that can be introduced into the neural capacity of AI that could prevent the machines taking over.
Whether this can be seen as scaremongering or the realisation that machines are very quickly becoming far smarter than us, albeit with our Editor that started with the invention of the abacus (‘You’re fired! – Ed), but it’s getting the tech industries to do something about it.
The danger….
What it makes clear is that the intelligence is developing so quickly that in the not so distant future it can put everyone out of a job. Incrementally AI, in terms of making people redundant, it is moving up the intellect job ladder from the very bottom which suggests that its already started with Brooklyn Beckham. From a capitalist point of view that might be ideal for a CEO wanting to push profits but not realising that AI would put them out of a job also.
Gawdat is right in his worry about the rise of AI and his mission to warn those that are in a position to do something is admirable but his solutions feel a little vague if not naïve in how to contain the technology when wealth and power seems to be the driving force behind AI’s seemingly unstoppable advance.
The future?
The malign effect of the rise of AI generated influencers, the potential for synthetic viruses to be printed as well as the obvious ability to harvest data collection, intrusive surveillance, aggressive selling and even gambling makes Chasing Utopia as alarming as it is fascinating if not ultimately powerless in the onslaught of a seemingly uncontainable power operated by short sighted, greed driven companies. It might be that the thesis behind the first two Terminator films means we could be looking back at the films as being a documentary also.
related feature : Did ‘The Matrix’ reveal a truth? – Director Rodney Ascher discusses new documentary, ‘A Glitch in the Matrix’
related feature : Being a robot in ‘Brian and Charles’….
Here’s the Chasing Utopia trailer…..
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