The article below was published two days ago. As of this morning, it’s been viewed 72 million times. I’m linking it here not to call your attention to it so much as to supplement it…with some warnings. I’ll be giving these warnings over the next few days. I think of them as “Warnings about AI from a Seasoned Novice.” (I say “novice” because I’ve used AI but have no expertise in the subject; I say “seasoned” because I’m old and have experienced a lot of innovation in my lifetime. This seasoning gives me some perspective.)
The first warning I’ll give is that my experiences with innovation in general and AI in particular convince me that that those who say that this technology “offers great benefits but also carries with it great dangers” are framing the issue in exactly the right way. In this sense, AI is very much like fire and electricity. (No, I’m not claiming to be old enough to have personally experienced those two innovations.)
This article doesn’t say much about the dangers of AI…which is why I thought I ought to write about them. In doing so, I’m not arguing with the author – just filling in the parts I wish he hadn’t left out. As you would expect, I’ll be mainly concerned with the problems it poses for Jesus-following Bible readers. The author, for his part, has done a good job of describing not just the mind-blowing power of AI, but also its equally mind-blowing rate of development. But I’ll save comment on that until tomorrow’s warning.
More AI Warnings
As social media seeks to keep us online, AI seeks even more: it’s designed to make us dependent. Using AI is one thing, becoming dependent on it is another. If social media has dumbed us down, AI can do worse than that.
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There’s nothing necessarily wrong with being dependent on some specific function that AI performs…just as there’s nothing necessarily wrong with giving some attention to social media…just as there’s nothing necessarily wrong with depending on an alarm clock to wake you up at the time you set. What makes dependence on AI more dangerous than dependence on social media or a clock is that AI can do so many more things than social media or clock. Use it sparingly, thoughtfully, and selectively. And review your decisions about it periodically.
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Don’t ever forget what the “A” stands for. Ever! Not even for a minute.
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When assessing AI’s answers to a question, don’t mistake confidence for correctness. I’ve gotten wrong answers from AI. I’ve even gotten refusals to answer. But I’ve never gotten a tentative answer.
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AI is not just artificial intelligence. It’s also “government intelligence,” which means it’s “official intelligence” – information that the government has deemed worthy of your attention. If you thought government’s censorship partnership with social media companies was problematic, it’s worse with AI companies.
This doesn’t mean everything AI tells you will be wrong. It just means everything AI tells you has to be taken with a grain of salt because you can never be sure you are getting the right story or the whole story.
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AI = institutional intelligence, meaning that it considers institutional knowledge more reliable than individual knowledge. In other words, you’re going to get the answers that have the most institutional support, meaning, for example, that what shows up on network news is considered reliable.
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“AI is going to change everything!” People used to say “The Internet is going to change everything!” during the dot-com era. Nothing changes everything.
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Most of the time, people ask a question to get an answer and move on. AI wants you to keep asking questions. AI gives you answers that entice you to ask more questions. Chatbots don’t seek to satisfy your curiosity; they seek to stimulate it. The more attention you give them, the better for them.
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Recognize that other people are using AI and you can’t stop them. Therefore, even if you choose not to use AI, people you rely on will use it, so you will still have to be aware of its advantages and disadvantages so you have some idea of how to protect yourself.
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Don’t think AI is a person. It will be easy to do so.
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“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams (second president of the United States) Machines can never be moral or religious.
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AI will lie.
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John 2:24 But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men,
John 2:25 and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.
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Related: AI Engines Have Learning Abilities and Disabilities (5 min)
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