Several times a day, I have to accept, refuse or configure the use of Cookies that track my user profile on the web. To protect my privacy, they say. It is, of course, easier to accept than to refuse. Should we be surprised?
Sometimes I imagine the invention of gunpowder and the upheavals it caused. Suddenly – in a fraction of a second – we were no longer in hand-to-hand combat, as it had been known for millennia; you could now hurt or kill an opponent in the distance. A revolution. Parenthesis: for pacifists and dreamers, should we remember that clashes and wars have existed since the world began? We perfect human nature with tools that reflect it. Always.
The invention of photography was to kill painting. Two hundred years later, we are still painting. Then the industrial era came and the population exploded, believing itself capable of infinity.
A friend bought a Tesla then sold it the same month, worried that Elon Musk would know where he was at all times; THE Cookies are nothing, our phones geolocate us within a few meters 24 hours a day, and everything is stored somewhere. Assembly line work terrified the craftsman. We invented robots and we began to have nightmares of universal unemployment and the end of the world appeared in new guises (again). And nuclear fission – and two bombs later – humanity would never be the same again. The computer revolution would change everything. Some pandemics too (nothing will be like before…). Do you see me coming?
I love the idea of artificial intelligence. Because she will save the world (hey, hey…) and destroy it at the same time. It’s a bit like everything we’ve invented since Adam and Eve. Do you remember it’s a woman’s fault that we have to work and suffer, kicked out of Heaven?
The anxiety that accompanies the AI makes you smile. We talk a lot about the false and the true, about this ability that AI would have to create illusions of truth. Take this example of a robot that “chatters” and recreates a reality. Well, I applaud. Finally an alternative solution to a certain form of stupidity which, moreover, makes us sigh. Since 2016, almost all journalists and media on the planet, with a few exceptions, have criticized and torpedoed Donald Trump, with more or less success, we agree; He is always there. For his part, the former president makes money with all his moves with the fake news and disinformation and its values contrary to ours. Let’s imagine for a moment that the AI makes him say clever things and it fools his devotees. Imagine Trump repeating ad nauseam that he wants a black woman in the presidency.
Imagine elsewhere that we confer on the AI a divine moral authority with force of principle on our values. It would only replace millennia of religions. Who is fooled here?
Why are we afraid? In 1970, an article in the magazine Life said that AI would soon have the equivalent of human intelligence.
Not so long ago, with some friends, I spent an evening with an eminent AI specialist (the one from Montreal, everyone is talking about). At the end of this evening, I understood that the AI came first and foremost from us. It is our intelligence that created it. With its limits, its qualities and its faults. The moratorium requested makes you smile. First because it’s impossible to stop this race and then because it’s like giving chocolate to a child, or an adult, by banning it. Human nature, that almost equal balance of benevolence and malevolence, doesn’t give a damn about a delay. Wars, pollution, human rights, climate change, wealth inequality, disasters…
Imagine the future of our governance without partisanship. Imagine decision-making that is less biased and less contaminated by “manishness”.
Maybe it’s time to create and invest in a company that can simply certify what’s AI-powered and what’s not (like organic stuff). On the other hand, if the AI makes art and it’s wonderful, or it improves our lot, I agree. But it will be like everything else: a fucked mix that looks a little too much like us.
Faced with the observation of the world in 2023, we have to admit that natural intelligence has not done so well. Quick, another form. Even if the artificial imitates the first, we can momentarily dream of a sort of better or worse future.
All this is written, with a happy soul and with faith, my mouth overflowing with last Sunday’s chocolate that I stole from the children. And it’s time to go play outside.