What scientists say about artificial intelligence is desperate

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been increasingly present in the lives of users around the world, transforming the way we make decisions, for good or bad. With this said, experts say they are not sure that governments are prepared for what this could cause society in the future.

Read more: ‘We have to be careful here’: AI scares even the CEO of OpenAI

In 2019, the non-profit research group Open AI Create a program capable of producing texts and performing preliminary analysis and understanding of texts without specific instructions. The group preferred not to make the tool available to the public, stating that the program was “extremely dangerous” at the time, because they were afraid of what malicious people could do with the program.

Three years later, the capabilities of AI systems have increased dramatically. Now, she is able to create photos and videos so real that she has sparked controversy in the news and social networks. The most recurring theme at the interactive conference South by Southwest, a global meeting with investors, tech executives and policymakers, was exactly the power of AI software.

Intelligence can make or break human lives

According to Amy Webb, president of the Future Today Institute and business professor at New York University, AI could go in two directions over the next ten years. In the first, most optimistic scenario, AI development would focus on the public good, such as designing a transparent system.

Through it, individuals will be able to decide whether their information will be made publicly available on the Internet. They will be able to choose whether to be included in the intelligence knowledge base. a technology It would make life easier for humans, be more positive in consumption and help actually perform tasks.

In contrast, the other scenario described by Webb is truly catastrophic. In this way, humans may have less data privacy, and power may be more centralized to a few companies. In terms of purchases, artificial intelligence will be able to anticipate the user’s needs.

He will be able to reflect the real choices and offer what will be the most profitable for the companies.

Unfortunately, this scenario has up to an 80% chance of becoming real.

Government and corporations will be the decisive factors in the future

In an interview with the BBC, Webb said that the direction AI will take will depend on the responsibility of the companies that will develop it. For this, it will be expected to be transparent and disclose and monitor from any sources Chatbots The information fed into the system is extracted.

In addition, Webb also argues that the second critical factor is government, including federal regulators and Congress. Thus, the government must act quickly enough to define legal protections and direct technological developments, according to the security of citizens, avoiding misuse.

When analyzing the current behavior of governments with large corporations, such as Facebook and Google, the future does not seem very encouraging. “What I heard in a lot of the conversations were concerns that there was no protective barrier,” Melanie Sobin, managing director of Future Today, said during the conference.