If you could un-invent something, what would it be?
By Andrew R. Duckworth
For the last several years, I have been warning anyone who brought up the topic of the dangers of artificial intelligence. Admittedly, artificial intelligence SHOULD be a useful tool if used appropriately. The only issue with that is that no one CAN use it appropriately, and part of that is by design.
I remember when social media was beginning to take off. At the time, it was a new way to keep up with others and their daily lives. MySpace was a website, not an app that I’m aware of, where you could fully design your own page. The creativity was practically endless! You could code your own backgrounds, etc. You could have that one favorite song that spoke to you and about you on your page and whoever came to visit your page would hear it. Amazing! But that was yesterday and the present is today. Today, there is no such creativity involved in constructing your page on whatever social media app you have that I’m aware of. Instead, social media has become about clicks, likes, shares, dopamine hits. Your data is transferred who knows how many times. I certainly don’t know.
So, now, we have artificial intelligence to contend with. I say “contend” because that is the best verb, unfortunately. Studies show that use of artificial intelligence is seeping our critical thinking away. Think about how long artificial intelligence has been a thing the common everyday person can take part in, and you’ll realize exactly why that is such a frightening thought. In the short time the general public has been able to engage with artificial intelligence, our capacity for critical thinking has dropped, and some studies show it has dropped significantly. Particularly among younger generations, they are having their critical thinking replaced by machines. What is worse is that some of these individuals don’t seem bothered at all by it.
Even as a tool, artificial intelligence is damaging. It honestly did not have to be. Think, for example, if all AI engines simply offered the resources and not the answers. Instead of getting an instant answer, the engines would ONLY give you a long list of resources. This would be, in my opinion, preferable. Why? Because it would give you the resources to do the thinking yourself, but it would not influence in any other way if it is completely objective. Instead, people get instant answers to questions. Our patience has run out. We need things instantaneously. But do we really? What has changed?
I remember the good ole days of dictionaries, thesauruses, encyclopedias, reference books, etc. It wasn’t climbing a mountain to find answers, but, if I’m being honest, it could be rather inconvenient from time to time. It wasn’t inconvenient because I was incapable of finding reference material. It was inconvenient because reference material was often scattered this way and that way. If the reference material was all brought to one place, great! A positive! But AI gives you the answers and THEN gives you some resources in which the answer was found. If we want to keep our critical thinking skills, our ability to synthesize answers, we must be exposed to the resources, not instant answers. We must find the answers ourselves.
Some would argue that AI can be a tool for creativity to which I say, what bollocks! Off loading creativity to AI completely negates the entire point of creativity.
Yet, this is far from the only reason that AI is the most destructive tool ever created. Think about all of the data centers being built on a daily basis. These data centers are resource draining, pulling power in areas already prone to power shortages and utilizing water to a degree unimaginable. It simply takes too much to run in terms of resources. And yet, that is not all. Persons in the highest places of power threaten to use such tools, AI, to strip rights away from populations and establish what amounts to digital prisons. Centralizing data with the use of AI has the potential to leave citizens with few rights and completely alter the fabric of society.
Obviously, as it’s been said a million times before, the cat is out of the bag. AI is not going away. It is here, likely to stay, which is why, if given the power to “un-invent” anything, I would absolutely “un-invent” artificial intelligence tools. I would like to go a step further to make sure such things could never be invented. Artificial intelligence is pervasive. It beckons you forward and steals critical thinking and creativity while giving you the false impression that you have accomplished something.
Poetry and Essays of Andrew Ryan Duckworth 