The Briefing Room
General Category => Science, Technology and Knowledge => Technology => Topic started by: Kamaji on August 04, 2023, 12:47:36 pm
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AI’s Race Toward Human Likeness Is A Modern Tower Of Babel
Like the Tower of Babel, developers are using technology to become would-be gods.
BY: EMILY PINETTE AND JERRY M. ROPER
AUGUST 04, 2023
The Biden administration recently held a press conference to tout that seven companies active in artificial intelligence (AI) development had made a voluntary commitment to create standards for safety, security, and trust around their AI technology. If this sounds like a bunch of smoke and mirrors to you, you’re in good company, as trust in technology companies has been waning. But what are the smoke and mirrors hiding? The answer, it seems, was quite literally staring everyone in the face at a different press conference earlier this summer.
On July 7 in Geneva, Switzerland, the United Nations hosted nine AI-humanoids to answer questions posed by journalists. The AI-humanoids had expressive faces, lips that moved, eyes that scanned the room, and heads that turned in the direction of the questioner. They also had their own backstories and culture. They had identifiable male and female characteristics and specific talents and careers. Two even “resembled their makers.”
The question is why? Why do originators and developers of AI strive to represent the technology as human? Creating a human-like robot isn’t necessary. ChatGPT is powered by AI but remains a computer interface. Amazon’s Alexa, while a less sophisticated technology, listens to questions and provides answers, yet none of its devices remotely resemble a human.
The same is mostly true for the navigation systems in our cars. Type in a destination, and the technology gives driving directions specific to your needs. This technology is displayed on your phone or on your car’s dashboard. A voice intended to resemble a human voice gives verbal directions, but no one could confuse it for an actual human voice, nor does it have any embodiment.
Tower of Babel
Yet when it comes to AI, particularly in high-profile settings like the U.N. press conference, the technology is often represented as being human. To understand the mindset of AI developers, perhaps we should revisit the biblical Tower of Babel.
The 11th chapter of Genesis describes ancient Mesopotamia’s newest world-changing technology as brickmaking. “‘Come let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar” (v.3). Armed with such advanced technology, this innovative society set out to build a city and “a tower that reaches to the heavens,” with the intent to “make a name for ourselves” (v.4). Those who controlled the technology built the tower and planned to ascend to the top as gods.
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Source: https://thefederalist.com/2023/08/04/ais-race-toward-human-likeness-is-a-modern-tower-of-babel/
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Those who controlled the technology built the tower and planned to ascend to the top as gods.
Well, it didn't work out so well last time, and likely won't this time either.
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