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Jun 06, 2023

Reflections

It seems there’s always something threatening to wipe out mankind. Elvis’

It seems there's always something threatening to wipe out mankind.

Elvis’ gyrating hips on the Ed Sullivan Show, nuclear destruction, the population explosion, microwave frequencies, the Night King, climate change, CNN and Fox News (pick your poison), pandemics, kinks in the supply chain and social media all have been identified as significant threats to man's survival.

No wonder so many kids these days supposedly are identifying as animals. Animals don't seem to have the bullseye on their backs humans do.

At this point aren't we all pining for just a dollop of serenity?

The latest threat to humanity's survival is artificial intelligence, which supposedly has the potential to outsmart us. Considering how many of us seem to be three bricks shy of a load, this seems quite plausible.

Technologists and academics are breaking metacarpals in their hands from smashing the red panic button that AI has the potential to erase humans from the face of the earth.

To clarify, AI and A1 are not interchangeable. The former is artificial intelligence, the latter is steak sauce.

Indeed, the tension over our latest doomsday is getting tighter than piano wire. Fear is swelling like a blowfish because AI doesn't have a heart and consequently could treat us with reptilian coldness.

And all this time I figured humans would either check out of existence in a gigantic explosion that turns the Milky Way galaxy into M&M's or erode away like old rocks.

In retrospect, riding the pixie dust of ever-expanding technological innovation may have been a fool's journey. What got into our heads? If only someone had tapped technologists on the forehead as though testing for termites.

Apparently, we have to rein in AI's capabilities before it drop-kicks all us dunces to Pluto.

Artificial intelligence wasn't on my radar until recently. Perhaps because intelligence and I seldom travel in the same circles.

Artificial intelligence is a wide term that encompasses an array of software that at its core is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines.

Apparently all the buzz these days is about generative AI, which includes programs like ChatGPT and DALL-E that generate content, whether it be text, photos or even audio.

It seems generative AI is grouped into two categories: weak and strong. These two terms don't imply that strong generative AI can bench press more weight because it takes steroids.

Weak AI, or Artificial Narrow Intelligence, is trained to perform specific tasks. Examples are Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa, who save us lazy blokes from having to look things up or bother Google.

Strong AI, or Artificial General Intelligence, is thought to be more equal to humans and can, in theory, solve problems, learn, plan and earn advanced degrees from Harvard, Yale, Oxford and Empire Beauty School simultaneously in a matter of minutes.

Since I’m a big Arnold Schwarzenegger fan, all this AI stuff reminds me of the Terminator films. I thought they had a great premise for sci-fi action flicks in which machines come to life and kill humans.

Pure fantasy, right?

Wrong.

Now with AI growing at an exponential pace, they’re calling this sequence of extinction events the Terminator scenario.

Well, that hardly puts a hammerlock on the AI nightmare suddenly tormenting us.

A curious thing about software. It's always immaculate, never grungy. But armed and dangerous, nonetheless.

You think we can trust our alluring mistress technology?

Big mistake.

The conventional wisdom for centuries was that Man, the upper case intentional, was Superman, lord of all the species. Turns out that man, the lower case intentional, simply may be a schmuck.

Perhaps all those software virtuosos were blooming weeds, not flowers, and inadvertently authoring the greatest horror film of all time.

In sci-fi movies, the good guy always wins. Why can't the monster win?

This time the monster just might.

Mike Zielinski, a resident of Berks County, is a columnist, novelist, playwright and screenwriter.

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