Kill the Chatbots?

While it is understandable that a new technology with seemingly vast powers would raise concerns, much of the handwringing over large-language-model chatbots is misplaced. The right response to economic disruption is not to stop the clock, but to try to maximize the gains and minimize the pain.

 
WASHINGTON, DC – The world has been dazzled by sudden major advances in artificial intelligence. But now some prominent and well-placed people are responding with misguided demands to pull the emergency brake.

An open letter calling “on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least six months the training of AI systems” has received thousands of signatures, including those of tech icons like Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak, many CEOs, and prominent scholars. Geoffrey Hinton, one of the pioneers of the “deep learning” methods behind the recent advances, was recently asked by CBS News about AI “wiping out humanity.” And, as always, many commentators fear that AI will eliminate the need for human workers. A 2022 Ipsos survey finds that only around one-third of Americans think that AI-based products and services offer more benefits than drawbacks.

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Should We Be Worried About Bespoke Chatbots?

For many, the age of artificial intelligence (AI) has only just become a conscious reality with the arrival of apps such as ChatGPT, DALL.E2, and character.ai. Any humble user of a website can now use these tools to create written, spoken, and graphic output that can be posted on social media, submitted for academic assessment, or published as the author’s own work in the public domain. These apps can even create the code for a website on which the content can be posted.

For some, however, these apps are perceived as a threat. With AI mimicking human conversation and responses so well, critics fear that with only one step further, these models can be customized so that they sound just like the original “author” (the “prompter”). Could, for example, the essence of a loved one be captured in code, so that they can be communed with after their earthly demise? Or could a maleficent hacker appropriate the audio, video, and speech habits of an individual and then deliver “fake news” indistinguishable (in digital form at least) from content created by the original person?

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