Get Your Ringside Seats: It’s Humanity vs. AI

Posted 5/6/2023

Imagine that you are trying to meet your favorite journalist.  This is a journalist whose news articles usually have the relevant facts and whose opinion columns reflects the writer’s keen insight on issues.  You visit the offices of the publication where this reporter works, knock on the door that bears that journalist’s name, and you are greeted by a robot which identifies itself as the journalist.  Your favorite news writer is a robot!

            If I were to submit this idea for a story to a publisher or literary agent, my manuscript would be laughed out of their office, and I would get sarcastic feedback.  However, recent headlines mention computers writing research papers.  In fact, some scientists fear that computers, robots, and other examples of artificial intelligence (AI) will soon be able to do almost everything better than humans.  Machines have already eliminated entire categories of jobs.  This may soon include jobs traditionally thought of has requiring the creativity that only a human is capable of.  With rumors of AI writing poetry and songs, do not think for a moment that your job will never be filled by a computer or robot. Lieutenant Commander Data, the android character in Star Trek: The Next Generation actually seems dumb compared to the AI that seems right around the corner from us.

            While we are on the topic of AI in entertainment, I feel compelled to point out a few examples of stories on the big screen and the small screen that address this very real fear.

            The Terminator movie and sequels:  A nearly indestructible and murderous robot from the future time travels to 1984 (when this movie was released) and targets a specific woman to prevent her from giving birth to a great military leader who will lead humanity in its war against the machines.  This robot exists because the U.S. Defense Department has developed a computerized defense system called Skynet and they have made it so intelligent that it becomes self-aware and wages war on humanity.

            AI: Artificial Intelligence: In this 2001 movie directed by Steven Spielberg, androids distinguishable from humans in appearance, called “mechas” are common and are on available on the market to buy.  A child mecha travels with a mecha built to provide romantic love to customers, travels in pursuit of his wish to become a real boy.  Along the way, they come across a “celebration of life” which is a rally of real flesh-and-blood people who fear and hate mechas because they think these androids will eventually replace humans.  Gradually this fear comes to fruition.

            The Twilight Zone:  One episode of the original classic TV series is about an industrial CEO who automates the company’s factory by replacing the human workforce with machines.  He does this with cold disregard of the people he has put out of work.  In a twist of irony and poetic justice that The Twilight Zone was famous for, this CEO is himself replaced by a robot. Twilight Zone producer Rod Serling in his closing comment at the end of the episode says, “The point is that too often man becomes clever instead of wise, he becomes inventive but not thoughtful – and sometimes, as in the case of Mr. Whipple, he can create himself right out of existence.”

            In one chilling statement Connor Leahy, a tech company CEO, warns that the chances of AI causing the extinction of the human race is “quite likely.”  Other tech company officials share this concern.  How could this happen?  Will our AI creations turn against us just like we turned against our creator in the book of Genesis?

            The good news is that AI is getting better at detecting cancer, pending heart attacks, and protecting our health and lives in other ways.  But what good is it to have medical miracles if we lose our jobs and can’t afford health insurance because we are replaced by machines?  I was a computer science major in college and later worked in information technology as a computer programmer and a computer operator.  The rise of computers has created new jobs in addition to eliminating jobs.  But what happens when computers begin programming themselves and robots are built by other robots?  In short, how do we prevent AI from ending the lives it was meant to improve?

We as a species need to step back and think about and decide what all this technology is for.