News of the Cyber World

[kyonides]

‘There’s the Possibility That AIs Will Run Out of Control’

Bill Gates recently praised the evolution of artificial intelligence, his relationship with OpenAI, and gave a short warning on the situation being portrayed differently by other subject experts, including Elon Musk.

The Microsoft co-founder started out his March 21 GatesNotes post on AI in a hopeful tone: “The development of AI is as fundamental as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the Internet, and the mobile phone. It will change the way people work, learn, travel, get health care, and communicate with each other. Entire industries will reorient around it. Businesses will distinguish themselves by how well they use it.”

Gates said that AI can help with several progressive agendas, including climate change and economic inequities, but that the technology is “disruptive,” and will “make people uneasy.”

“AIs also make factual mistakes and experience hallucinations.” AI hallucinations are confident responses by an AI that are not grounded in its training data. Frequent hallucinations are considered to be a major issue with large language models like ChatGPT.

“In addition, advances in AI will enable the creation of a personal agent. Think of it as a digital personal assistant: It will see your latest emails, know about the meetings you attend, read what you read, and read the things you don’t want to bother with,” Gates said.
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Regarding the education sector, Gates said: “It will know your interests and your learning style so it can tailor content that will keep you engaged. It will measure your understanding, notice when you’re losing interest, and understand what kind of motivation you respond to. It will give immediate feedback.”

Gates starts this section with the fact that AI does not understand “context for a human’s request,” leading to “strange results.” For example, “when you ask for advice about a trip you want to take, it may suggest hotels that don’t exist.”

Although such technical issues will get resolved, there are some problems that pose a greater danger.

“For example, there’s the threat posed by humans armed with AI. Like most inventions, artificial intelligence can be used for good purposes or malign ones.”

He then added, “Then there’s the possibility that AIs will run out of control. Could a machine decide that humans are a threat, conclude that its interests are different from ours, or simply stop caring about us?”

 That makes it hard to properly discern if the major cyber threat humanity is facing right now is OpenAI aka ChatGPT or Bill Gates himself.