Looking into the Future of AI

We have seen a technological boom and exponential growth of technology in the past years. I prefer the examples of iPhone and tablet iPad which dramatically changed our communication with tech and our daily lives. They were presented in 2007 and 2010 respectfully – still very recently, in comparison to the huge impact they managed to make.

AI technology wasn’t an exception. First trained in 2018, ChatGPT is nowadays the largest AI model, and it is getting extremely popular with the largest user acquisition ever. Many appeared not ready for such a tempo of technological progress!

Not accidentally we mentioned Azimov’s Laws of Robotics in the article ChatGPT: Safety, Ethical, and Legal Aspects. To my belief, science fiction is our key knowledge base to be used in order to understand what is happening in front of our eyes and where we are going.

In a short period of time, we will likely observe an even more significant rise of AI technology. ChatGPT is a successful pioneer, while a set of other multinational tech giants are developing this technology as well and haven’t entered the market yet. Possibly because larger companies have longer processes in comparison to the smaller and more focused OpenAI with only about 400 employees in 2023.

Speaking of the short timeline, we foresee several events.

1. Releases of rather sophisticated AI products by large tech companies, which are currently under development, configuration, or training.
2. Release of an even stronger version of ChatGPT. Together with the progress of the ChatGPT pioneer, we will face more products based on ChatGPT language model and more capabilities of this model itself.
3. Speaking of new ChatGPT-based tools, they will become surprisingly capable and comprehensive. For instance, holographic personal assistants will no longer be a futuristic idea from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – a novel by Philip Dick published in 1968.
4. Another wing of AI implementation can likely happen in the Web 3.0 concept, where tech companies are already building objects and property assets in virtual reality with distributed knowledge and IPR.
5. More and more AI-based IT solutions will be provided on a paid basis. Modern AI requires considerable data center resources, thus free private use will likely become rather limited.
6. Governmental reviews and discussions, imposing of some timely limitations or even larger scale regulations and standards.

Ethical Aspects of Modern AI in a Longer Term

AI technology is already making a significant impact on our lives, so it is important to foresee further development of this technology and the issues that we need to start preparing for.

According to the recent Bloomberg research, in the next 5 years, nearly a quarter of jobs will change as a result of AI technologies, digitalization, and other recent trends. The report authors foresee 83 mln jobs to be lost (the areas of cashiers, ticket clerks, data entry, and accounting), while 69 mln new jobs to be created (primarily in the areas of big data analytics, management technologies, and cybersecurity). Near 75% of surveyed companies expect to adopt AI technologies during this period.

Geoffrey Hinton, often called a godfather of AI, has recently resigned from Google to speak freely about the risks of AI and with the feeling of regret for some of his work in the past.

He states:

Dr. Hinton insists on the necessity of choosing a responsible approach, “to stop it going rogue”.

Another warning comes from Johnny Thomson, a Philosophy professor at Oxford:

The author doesn’t think that the worst scenario would come in place. However, the pink glasses do not look like the proper approach either. Now, only several months after the public release of ChatGPT, we need to switch on the high beams to see our road up front and do our best to predict it even further. The currently known risks, the necessity of open public dialogue on AI topic, proper development of this technology, and its responsible use – all are very important topics to focus on in the next years.

Conclusions

We are witnessing a significant shift in digital technologies and the start of a new era of AI in particular. The rising star of AI takes a lot of attention from many around the globe and is already imposing the impact on the life as we know it. Those changes tend to accelerate, and more are yet to come.

We already observe the impact of ChatGPT and her mates on the modern workplace, see yet unresolved legal questions and the areas of state regulation to come, face a large number of undiscussed ethical dilemmas, and even some horrifying forecasts.

At the moment, AI technology is not so strong to become Terminator’s Skynet to take competition over the earth. Rather it is at a junior level to do certain not very complicated tasks. Quite likely many stakeholders are trying to catch up with the rising wave of hype. And it doesn’t look like the technology can really substitute real creativity in communication, education, literature, and art. But it will stay and develop in those areas where we will place it by ourselves.

That is why we would like to specifically draw the reader’s attention to two areas. Firstly, the topic of modern AI and its progress needs attentive research, analysis, and timely adjustments along the way in an open dialogue with multiple stakeholders.

And secondly, we already need to see over a larger distance. Science fiction authors have predicted that one day AI can realize itself as a conscious being, emotional, striving to exist, develop, and reproduce.

By that time humanity can likely become overdependent on AI technologies and would already give them access to the most critical spheres of industries and technology. Thus, the foreseen questions of side-by-side living of humans and robots, mutual rights and responsibilities, legal ways to determine the Intelligence of a being (biological and not), and sustainability in such a new form of cooperation – all of these questions shouldn’t be postponed to our tomorrow agenda.

Science fiction authors from the mid-20^th century have already predicted what became true today. We need to be very attentive to other forecasts they have made as well.

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