{"id":13501,"date":"2023-05-31T11:30:26","date_gmt":"2023-05-31T10:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techinsight.net\/?p=13501"},"modified":"2023-05-31T11:30:26","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T10:30:26","slug":"techinsights-take-exploring-the-turbulent-path-ahead-as-ai-reshapes-industries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techinsight.net\/blogs\/techinsights-take-exploring-the-turbulent-path-ahead-as-ai-reshapes-industries\/","title":{"rendered":"TechInsight’s Take: Exploring the Turbulent Path Ahead as AI Reshapes Industries"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the short time I\u2019ve been writing for <\/span>TechInsight<\/span><\/a>, it\u2019s become abundantly clear that we\u2019re in the thick of a seismic digital shift. Just this week, a household name and telecoms giant <\/span>BT announced<\/span><\/a> it was to shed over 55,000 jobs by the end of the decade; as per BBC\u2019s recent report, up to a fifth of those workers will be casualties of artificial intelligence’s incursion. Shockingly, Goldman Sachs has <\/span>predicted<\/span><\/a> AI could eradicate 300 million jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anecdotally, I have had many conversations with my creative friends \u2013 graphic designers and music producers \u2013 who are terrified as the copyright goalposts shift in real-time. A day doesn\u2019t pass where I don\u2019t see a social media post bemoaning how \u201cartificial intelligence was supposed to do the boring hard jobs and leave us with the fun ones\u2026 not the other way around.\u201d Sting <\/span>has a stark prediction<\/span><\/a> about the future of music, and even\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tom Hanks <\/span>doesn\u2019t think people will care<\/span><\/a> if AI keeps him propped up forevermore.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bleak outlook. I have tried to present a balanced view of the topic on TechInsight, presenting reports on both sides of the argument; I recently reported that the CEO of Digital Science & Research Limited, Dr Daniel Hook, stated that \u201cmodern workers must embrace the <\/span>AI dark arts<\/span><\/i> to thrive.\u201d Reading through <\/span>the article<\/span><\/a>, I considered this to be a relatively positive spin \u2013 yes, there will be a tumultuous recalibration, but ultimately, workers will be buoyed by the burgeoning technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

Right?<\/b><\/p>\n

At the beginning of May, <\/span>it was reported<\/span><\/a> that the \u2018godfather\u2019 of AI, Dr Geoffrey Hinton, was stepping down from his high-ranking position at Google. Part of this, yes, has to do with his age (a fact that has been glossed over by some outlets), but Hinton, 75, has served as somewhat of a harbinger for the destructive potential of artificial intelligence. An intelligent utopia of shared, super-powered information is nice though, but Hinton\u2019s right to warn of \u201cbad actors\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can imagine, for example, some bad actor like Putin decided to give robots the ability to create their sub-goals,\u201d he shares. This eventuality might, “create sub-goals like ‘I need to get more power'”. As a species, we\u2019ve marvelled at the theoretical potential of artificial intelligence for <\/span>close to a century<\/span><\/a>; Vannevar Bush predicted a system which amplifies people\u2019s knowledge and understanding in 1945.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1950, Alan Turing proposed that these systems could one day simulate human beings, and play chess.<\/b><\/p>\n

As a nerd who writes for a tech site, until recently, my first thought on the matter would have been the swatches of spectacular cinema on the topic. Recently, my wife and I have embarked on a bit of an \u2018AI binge\u2019, enjoying low-budget gems. 2017\u2019s <\/span>Marjorie Prime<\/span><\/i> and 2021\u2019s<\/span> I\u2019m Your Man<\/span><\/i> is both near-future evolutions of 2013\u2019s <\/span>Her <\/span><\/i>that explore the sociological ramifications of seeking out corporeal (or close enough) intimacy between the lines of code. We\u2019re not quite there yet.<\/span><\/p>\n

2022\u2019s <\/span>The Artifice Girl <\/span><\/i>introduces audiences to a nascent presence \u2013 a technological breakthrough \u2013 generated for thought-provoking, and wholly altruistic reasons. Yet even a film released last year, pondering the future, feels so wholly stuck in the past. Legendary AIs such as HAL 9000 from 1968\u2019s <\/span>2001: A Space Odyssey<\/span><\/i> and SkyNet from 1985\u2019s <\/span>Terminator<\/span><\/i> were presented with cold, calculating, <\/span>deadly <\/span><\/i>efficiency.<\/span><\/p>\n

Logical beings, just doing their jobs.<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

As people imagine they remember where they were when Michael Jackson died, I remember where I was when I heard about ChatGPT for the first time. I\u2019m a writer. Of course, I\u2019m going to be nervous that such technology is threatening <\/span>me, <\/span><\/i>but after some research \u2013 and some usage \u2013 I\u2019ve come to realise that it\u2019s not a great writer. It\u2019s a great thinker. It\u2019s also been posited as something other than just another search engine (\u2122).<\/span><\/p>\n

OpenAI\u2019s invention, at least GPT-4, was trained on data that are capped around September 2021; it can philosophise until the cows come home, but like a guidebook from the past, it\u2019s not going to be able to give you up-to-date information about the Greek restaurant around the corner, but it can guide you towards our landmarks and achievements. Even back in 2019, OpenAI stated its program was \u201ctoo dangerous\u201d for primetime, providing only limited access to the public.<\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span>Skip forward four years and we stand at a precipice. Recently, the British government <\/span>has baulked<\/span><\/a> at how to wrangle the ever-fluctuating prospect of cryptocurrency, only to later take a backfooted <\/span>\u2018regulatory\u2019<\/span><\/a> stance. According to Rishi Sunak, the UK will lead on <\/span>\u201cguard rails\u201d<\/span><\/a> to limit the dangers of AI. His comments come as more than 1,000 artificial experts called for a pause to limit its real-world ramifications.<\/span><\/p>\n

The rapid rise and integration of artificial intelligence into countless services has come even quicker than many expected; the theoretical is no longer fiction. Isaac Asimov, Bush and Turing\u2019s famous thoughts on the subject are now footnotes in a discourse that\u2019s unfurling in real-time. Rather than doom forecasting, it\u2019s wise to heed Dr Daniel Hook\u2019s words: there\u2019s no harm in upskilling. As every new technology finds its way to the common man, we\u2019re forced to contend with it \u2013 today, offices would be unrecognisable without computers, but this wasn\u2019t always the case.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Fourth Industrial Revolution represents a fundamental shift in the way we live, work and cooperate, and it\u2019s wholly digital. Artificial intelligence is charting its course. If Goldman Sachs\u2019 <\/span>predictions<\/span><\/a> are true, then our greatest asset is our humanity: we still have our superpowers to collaborate, communicate and be compassionate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Right now we\u2019re caught in the riptide \u2013 a seismic sea change \u2013 and at least one teacher thinks this is a valuable time to instil empathy and ethics into the next generation of workers. In a recent <\/span>Guardian article<\/span><\/a>, Siva Vaidhyanathan opted not to admonish her students at the University of Virginia for using ChatGPT to generate essay answers but to seize this as a vital opportunity to enlighten and educate.<\/span><\/p>\n

She says, \u201cWe asked them to consider whether the results reflected well on their goal of becoming educated citizens. Of course, they did not.\u201d Artificial intelligence is all around us \u2013 we can\u2019t change that fact. In a world where countless citizens <\/span>will<\/span><\/i> let computers think for them, there\u2019s never been a better time to think for yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the short time I\u2019ve been writing for TechInsight, it\u2019s become abundantly clear that we\u2019re in the thick of a seismic digital shift. Just this week, a household name and telecoms giant BT announced it was to shed over 55,000 jobs by the end of the decade; as per BBC\u2019s recent report, up to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":13524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blogs"},"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techinsight.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13501"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techinsight.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techinsight.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techinsight.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techinsight.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/techinsight.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techinsight.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techinsight.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techinsight.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techinsight.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}