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this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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Explain Like I'm Five
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AI is a blanket term that is used to describe many different things and more recently used as a Bogeyman by the media to scare everyone's pants off.
The "AI" that's all the hype recently à la ChatGPT, Bard etc are "generative AI" based on Large Language Models. They seem really good at answering questions, creating content, rewriting text etc. The "threat" to humanity at the moment is more about industries being disrupted, jobs being replaced by these technologies, etc. Customer Service, Copywriting, Legal and creative industries are all impacted. In the longer term, as with all technologies, there is a concern that there will be an imbalance in the access of this tech and for example, only the rich and powerful can truly harness the power of these tools.
There is also the more Doomsday interpretation of "AI" which in this case, really means AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), where the AI actually becomes sentient and can think / reason for itself. I think this is still in the realm of science fiction today but who knows about the future. The worry here is that if such a sentient being become malevolent for one reason or another, we would be dealing with an AI Overlord kind of scenario with the superior computing power, access and knowledge that it will have.
Specifically about generative bots: the bots themselves are no threat. And they would be still no threat, even if they worked far better or far worse than they do - because they simply output text. The actual threat is some bloody irrational (assumptive, gullible, oversimplifying) individuals in positions of power might get really lazy, use the output for decision making, harm people with their idiotic decision, and then blame the tool for what was ultimately their decision. But frankly? This sort of trashy individual has been a plague to humankind since the dawn of time, with or without large language models.
Tbf, in its current form chatgpt is already wiser than most politicians. Unfortunately, because of your last sentence, they will stay less wise that chatgpt