It was met with a lot of critical response when it was first announced, but Oprah Winfrey’s ‘AI and the Future of Us’ broadcast was on television. She spoke with Sam Altman (OpenAI) and Bill Gates (ex-Microsoft) about the role of artificial intelligence.
Where many people expected a marketing pitch for artificial intelligence, the session turned out to occasionally be about the less positive sides that AI sometimes takes or can take. Oprah stated that AI is here and that we as humanity have to live with the consequences. “It can be our friend and our enemy,” said Oprah, who trusts that we will adapt.
AI predictive or analytical?
It was notable that the session was televised in the same week that OpenAI announced a new product. In his talk with Oprah, Altman mainly talked about how the AI receives training data and has to use that data to estimate what is coming next in order to learn to understand the underlying concepts. It is true that AI can predict the next word in a sentence, but that is not so much AI that thinks for itself: it is more a matter of knowing, based on data, which words are statistically most likely to come, writes Techcrunch.
Altman also said it’s important for the government to get involved and figure out how to test these systems for safety. “Like we do for airplanes or medicine. It’s already happening with AI: I have a conversation with someone who works for the government every few days.” He doesn’t claim to be the most powerful and dangerous man in the world: he doesn’t even agree with that. He just feels a responsibility to steer AI in a positive direction, he said.
Sora
YouTuber Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) was there to explain more about AI and talked about deepfakes and Sora, the video AI from OpenAI that allows you to generate videos based on prompts. You can’t really tell the difference between real and fake anymore. These types of video systems are able to create fake sex videos of people who would never do this. That can be a big problem: ‘sextortion’ is common, especially among young people, where they are blackmailed after sharing nude photos, or sometimes with nude photos created with AI tools. Many AI tools have built in that this cannot be created, but there are also sites that are very popular because it is possible.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates was interviewed by Oprah about how AI can help in the medical world and the world of education. Gates said, “AI is like a third person who sits in (a medical appointment), transcribes it, and suggests a prescription. And so instead of the doctor looking at a computer screen, he or she is interacting with you, and the software makes sure that there is a really good transcript.” In school, AI could help motivate you to do schoolwork. This did not discuss the situation with students who let AI do all their homework and how much AI can hallucinate. In any case, many critical questions were not asked: or were asked but not provided with a clear answer.
So has anything new really been said? No, but it wasn’t all for nothing either. This has made many Americans aware of what is happening in the world of artificial intelligence, which may well prompt them to take action. Action with, without or against AI.
Follow more about AI and subscribe to our newsletter.
Source: www.bright.nl
