Humanity is on the verge of something really big. Enormous changes are coming to almost every aspect of our society and most people don’t have a clue.
What we’re talking about is sudden spikes in artificial intelligence advancements in last couple of months. Not that humans are not developing AI solutions for years, but it really seems that we’re now suddenly in fifth gear in full speed and with huge acceleration momentum.
Recent developments in ChatGPT 4.0 (or DALL-E, Midyourney etc…), combined with horrific disturbance around the world related to economy, wars, and geopolitical situation, could really lead this society on the verge of something new. Something unknown.
Will it be positive or negative or both?
Let’s see.
Two types of artificial intelligence
While many people call artificial intelligence everything that can somehow respond to your queries or play chess with humans – it is not that simple. And many things that people refer to as artificial intelligence – simply isn’t.
If we’d like to be really detailed then artificial intelligence can be divided into many categories but generally it is acceptable to separate two types: narrow (or weak) AI and general AI, which is also known as AGI or strong AI.
Narrow or weak AI is a type of Artificial Intelligence involving machines that can perform only a narrowly or closely defined set of specific tasks. Those have been present in our society for many years. Think about devices like Alexa or programs which can play chess or Alpha-Go and beat humans every time.
It is not to say that those types of AI’s are not something worth admiring, but they are literally nothing compared to so called strong or general AI. We’re talking about difference comparable of first calculator to most powerful computers that society today has.
First calculators were able to do only a couple of things. All related to calculation and (at the beginning) simple math. Today’s computer can do thousands of different things simultaneously.
That’s how different general AI is from narrow AI.
In simple terms Artificial General Intelligence could be described as a type of intelligence similar to humans. Hence the name – General. Because we humans can do many different things simultaneously, we can think, we can make decisions depending on the input we receive, and we can evolve.
Almost all of those attributes could be appointed to modern development of AI. And that is scary in some way. But also optimistic in another way.
Open AI’s ChatGPT (or some other examples like Google’s Bard) are not exactly and completely there to be characterized as general and strong intelligence but they are remarkably close. And with every day – getting even closer.
Having that in mind – what could it potentially mean for our society in next 5, 10 or 10 years.
Let’s see.
Society and Artificial Intelligence
Society has changed hundreds of times already. From hunter gatherers we went to agricultural society to building cities, going through industrial and information revolution – you name it, humans went thought it.
Some changes were not so dramatic, and some were. People of that time (when the substantial changes happened) talked about doom scenarios and apocalypse but nothing of that kind happened. We just kind of evolved as humans to organize ourselves differently and to use different tools. That’s the basic difference.
Yet, this time it could be something completely different.
Why?
Well, because general (strong) artificial intelligence could disrupt the sole fabrics of our society and what it means to be human.
If we take a deeper look at potential consequences (positive or negative) in different industries and segments of our society, we’ll know why.
Let’s take a look at one of the most obvious in relation to ChatGPT – the Content Creation Industry or as I like to call it CCI (not CCP 😊).
Content Creation and AI
ChatGPT can create remarkably interesting responses. It can write essays, poems and it can answer almost any question you ask it (him, her?). Perhaps good “living example” is our book “The Life: Meaning, Purpose and Death” which was created solely by ChatGPT and DALL-E. Co-author (Domagoj Pernar), only gave ideas to the system and everything has been written and painted by AI.
You can take a look at all the details regarding process, creation of that book and publishing here.
Ok, so back to AI and its impact to content creation and content creators.
So, with advancements of ChatGPT (and other systems) it seems natural that a lot of human content creation will be gone. From one perspective this is good. Namely, we’re witnessing the demise of mass media publications, and this is certainly a positive thing.
And while it is not happening solely because of AI it will continue to happen. Mass media nonsense peaked around 2020 (together with covid insanity) and people are slowly but surely noticing how big houses like NBC, CBS, New York Times, Washington Post (etc etc x 100 times), are losing credibility. And they are losing credibility because they do not create ORIGINAL content.
Exactly because of non-originality, they can (and will be) replaced by any smarter AI. It is happening already, and it will happen even more in the coming years.
Good riddance with that kind of media and that kind of journalists.
Matt Taibbi, Alex Berenson, or similar REAL journalist will persist to exist because they create content that can’t be created by AI, and probably never will.
AI can be developed to insane levels but still it won’t be able to recreate ingenuity and imagination of real (human) authors.
But what about other types of content creation like videos, tutorials et cetera? The same analogy goes as with written text. It seems that AI will be able to produce relatively quality content for everything.
Imagine asking IT (AI) to produce you a video of how to repair your bike or specific part on your specific car you have. DONE. In a matter of seconds (or minutes) and with extensive details it will be able to create step by step instructions accompanied with rich video content. This is not exactly available yet, but it will be for sure.
AI will (probably) be able to produce any kind of content (text, audio, video, pictures, 3d models) based on simple user request. Most is already available: text, audio, pictures & models. Video is not yet completely available, but it will be soon, and it will be incredibly good.
Then we need to touchpoint one important topic, and this is real time media and news.
Will we come to the point one day where AI will create news in real time. Think about replacing all anchors and all news with AI generated news real time.
This will become reality if not in 5 years, then surely in 20 years. So, AI will produce realistic videos of TV anchors, studios and of course news.
News will be generated based on billions and billions of available data online and then AI will choose most relevant for you.
But who will create baseline data?
Well, also AI.
So, AI will be the sole creator of base data used for the creation of news, articles, and everything else. Full 360.
So, imagine one day where almost all (95%) content will be created by AI. How will we control that or even better who will control that?
I mean the same question could be asked for currently available mainstream media. Someone is controlling those corporations and news are strictly picked based on what they would like you to hear.
You have a completely different view of the world depending on where you read and watch your news. In Russia you will see one picture, in USA another and in China something completely different.
Will AI be able to resolve this void between selective and biased content? Perhaps. And this will be a good thing.
So then again, AI content creation could be really good thing for humanity, but it could also lead into some negative scenarios.
Negative scenarios such as fake presidents, fake news, and completely fake world of content.
But are we perhaps already there with current content? Is majority of news and content already fake in one way or another?
We’ll leave those questions to marinate for some time.
Related:
