If we have had it raw for a long time when it comes to distinguishing truth from lies, now, with AI, we can throw in the towel. And there is no way. Reality is no longer what it was. Neither does the information we consume. Social networks swarm with falsehoods, hoaxes, outbursts, bile. So much so that it would be greatly appreciated if someone, an expert in the field, would kindly explain to us, once and for all, what the heck is happening, how we got here.
At the beginning of May, Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI, that is, of ChatGPT, was invited by the United States judicial committee made up of senators, to participate in an information session on artificial intelligence. In addition to Altman, brainy professors such as Gary Marcus, or Cristina Montgomery, from IBM, also paraded through the committee.
But as much as the experts elaborated and the senators asked, there was no way to know how ChatGPT works or how it makes its decisions. And for good reason: not even their inventors know! So the only thing that became clear, in addition to admitting collective ignorance in the face of the potentially threatening invention, no matter how great it may be, is the need to control it before it is too late, as Altman recently explained to Pedro Sánchez in La Moncloa, among other European leaders.
Now, who will be the handsome one to control it? Will each country shoot on its own? Will the EU stand out from the United States on this pressing issue? What will China, Russia or India say? For now, there are only unknowns and time is pressing. Because, meanwhile, the AI ​​advances at full speed into the unknown, with effects, whether positive or negative, totally unpredictable. So, at this point in the film, it’s not at all adventurous, given how little is known and given the mind-blowing trailers already made public, to fear the worst.
What is really going to make it difficult to make political decisions in this regard, which will surely take some time to take place, is that most of the companies that develop AI systems are private, as is also the case with the Silicon Valley giants, which give the impression of operating above the law. And there is a very real possibility that all these systems end up in the hands of very few, and that they will be further and further removed from any legislative or moral control.
In 2010, the United States asked the United Kingdom for the extradition of a stockbroker who authored a computer program capable of illegally manipulating the stock market and causing the cascade of sales that led, in a heartbeat, to the collapse that was dubbed the flash crash. The Dow Jones index lost a whopping 900 points in just five minutes, only to soon recover everything lost.
But it was not until five years later that the identity of who was behind such a collapse was known. This was Singh Sarao, a 37-year-old futures trader whose system allowed him to place multiple false sell orders at different prices at lightning speeds, thus giving the impression of liquidity.
Singh’s case was just the tip of the iceberg. And it is that by then the stock markets had gone from being carried by people to falling under the domain of an increasingly fast and incomprehensible technology for mere mortals, including its inventors. That is to say, not even the most seasoned brokers knew for sure how they made a living.
If neither the experts, nor much less the politicians, know what is happening or where we are headed, in our future they paint coarse.
