After watching “The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist,” viewers are left with both dread and a touch of hope. The eye-opening documentary about the most powerful technology humanity has ever created reminds us of what’s at stake if man gets it wrong. Assessments by experts interviewed range from the end of humanity within a decade to exponential progress in overcoming disease and leveraging human creativity. It was clear that none of the experts and entrepreneurs were willing to promise that a positive future is assured. The movie challenges all to become more informed and to be ready to adapt to a rapidly changing reality. Putting your head in the sand is not an option.
Alvin Toffler wrote in Future Shock, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Oh, how true those words are. When competing with Artificial General Intelligence robots, will you or any human have what it takes to even get a job? If such robots possess human-level intelligence able to process diverse, unscripted tasks at speeds man cannot achieve, what jobs will even be available? In the worst case, if man is no longer necessary, what will stop AGI entities from eliminating man as an obstacle to progress?
After seeing the film, here are some key AI insights worth sharing:
The AI train cannot be stopped. AI has left the station, and it’s picking up speed and scope. It creates both a very real threat and an amazing promise of progress. Unfortunately, even the experts are having trouble keeping up with what they’re creating. AI devours ever-expanding available data and feeds on patterns to learn and adapt. Whatever AI is at any given moment is quickly outdated by what is taking its place at a speed our brains cannot even fathom.
The power of AI is hard to ignore. Millions are already using ChatGPT, an AI application developed by OpenAI, as a user-friendly, specialized tool to create quality content. ChatGPT is designed to simulate human dialogue, generate congruent text, and solve problems based on the available language models it has learned. Teachers are now having to use software to determine whether an essay was written by the student or ChatGPT.
Privacy is an illusion. In a digital world, there is minimal privacy. AI can access any information available and seek what it does not yet have. It can be listening or searching through available devices in your world. The more you access online options, the more AI can learn about you.
Trust but verify any video content. There are examples of AI-generated videos being used to influence elections and criminal prosecution. A candidate leading in the polls saw a last-minute fake video released by an opponent, which resulted in the loss of an election. As AI can be used to alter digital images to feed existing biases, be aware that the “truth” of any video recording will sometimes be hard to establish.
AI has already increased societal costs. The environmental impact of the large data centers needed to feed AI is extensive. The increased surveillance in our communities is both helping and hurting. The effectiveness of the military attacks in Iran shows AI in action. Since all of us have biases, AI can be used to feed those biases with information you want to believe. There is no shared reality to determine what is really “true.”
Who wins the AI race is critical. All the major powers are working to win the AI race that could impact world dominance. Who wins matters. Will the winner use AI systems to establish control or ensure freedom and self-sufficiency? Do what you can to support the U.S. efforts to take the lead.
International boundaries to the use of AI need to be created and affirmed worldwide. As of now, individual countries are working to establish legal restraints to guide AI development. But if such boundaries are not affirmed internationally, the threat of AI increases.
Such limits are being tested. Anthropic, a U.S.-based AI firm highlighted in the film, just lost a federal appeals court appeal to halt the Pentagon’s blacklisting of Claude AI for military use. Anthropic had refused to remove safety guardrails. A San Francisco judge blocked the Pentagon, but a D.C. court upheld the Pentagon’s authority. Safeguards will be tested by the demands of users. Whether that is good or bad will be determined over time.
There was success on another front. First lady Melania Trump scored a legal victory this week, as a guilty plea by an Ohio man became the first conviction under the Take It Down Act. She advocated for the act, which aims to protect victims of deepfake and revenge pornography. The law "prohibits the nonconsensual online publication of intimate visual depictions of individuals, both authentic and computer-generated, and requires certain online platforms to promptly remove such depictions upon receiving notice of their existence." There is no guarantee that this limit will be maintained outside the U.S.
Daniel Roher, the on-camera host in “The AI Doc” and new dad, asks a question that is unsettling but drives the movie: "Should I even have a child in the face of what AI means to life as we know it?" Some experts and entrepreneurs seemed unwilling to answer that question in the affirmative. It becomes clear that all of us must stay informed and demand the kind of ground rails and progress that give hope a chance. May it be so.
Terry Paulson is a PhD psychologist, professional speaker, and author of The Optimism Advantage and his new political novel, The Summit. Contact him at terry@terrypaulson.com.