Artificial Intelligence – Is Skynet already here?

I am always fascinated by new technology and I like to envision how technologies may transform, disrupt and evolve our world. It’s the reason why I have been so enamoured by Crypto in recent years and before that I was one of the early adopters of the Internet (which old news now). I’ve been aware for a while that Artificial Intelligence technology has been emerging as a major advancement for the human race over the last several decades and doing a bit of a Deep Dive into it has been on my TODO list for a while now….well I’ve finally had some time to have a bit of a look.

My curiosity about AI flared pretty hard on my radar when the issue of AI generated content blew up on HIVE a few months back and a lot of my alt-news channels had started talking about the breakthrough ChatGPT and how it might be used. I was fortunate to come across one of our great witnesses from Australia here on HIVE @ausbitbank who has set up a Discord with a few of these AI bots in a bit of a sandpit play area for people to check out, so that’s exactly what I did. I started playing and chatting with the various bots to see what they were like and I have to admit I was pretty shocked at just how advanced they have become. The Art bot still blows my mind with just how quickly it can “Dream Up” and render a high quality original picture. I have used it to generate ALL of the pictures on this post.

When I started to interact with the chat bots, however, my understanding of the technology really evolved. I tried to apply a bit of critical thought and have a bit of an argument with them about some of the issues causing such widespread cognitive dissonance across our broader society because I figured that logic and rationality were things that an AI would likely understand. The first thing that I learnt is that they are so advanced that it is possible to have a full intellectual debate with them, and they actually do make sense. Secondly, I believe there is some bias built into these things which is likely a result of the information sources they’ve been built upon and/or been told to prioritize. Thirdly, while they might be able to pretend and mimic human emotions it is very obvious to me that these are totally absent. They can very effectively provide two sides to a debate and even absolve themselves from having an “opinion” on either side but for example, on a topic such as whether it is ethical to employ organ harvesting on criminals for the “Greater Good” of society – they could make a case that it was a good thing.

So do I think the developments in AI technology are dangerous? Fuck yes. The way technology is usually rolled out, the rank and file plebs like me only get to see the older tech so I am sure that the military and corporations have even more advanced AI then we are seeing. Couple this technology with a psychotic elite ruling class that is leading us on a path of corporate fascism and, yes, I think that Skynet (or worse) is probably already here. That’s not to say I think that AI is bad, it’s probably a very useful and powerful advancement that could help humanity greatly….I just think that in the wrong hands it is likely to become our worst nightmare so we better get on top of this technology sooner rather than later.