The movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” debuted in 1968, when I was a teenager, so I have seen speculation about the dangers of runaway artificial intelligence, or AI, for decades.
As an aside, isn’t it odd how we like to tab possibly harmful phenomena with harmless sounding initials, like AI, or AOC?
Now, back to the movie. I won’t spoil it for you, but the basic plot is a sentient computer HAL9000 (another innocuous acronym) on a space flight perceives the accompanying astronauts as threats to the mission and to HAL itself, which prompts attempts to neutralize said astronauts.
All these years later, AI has not been allowed to take control of our lives stealthily — yet. The data centers to breathe life into it are rightly identified as harmful to the health of humans, with their seemingly endless demand for water and electricity, both of which are relatively important to human existence. The citizenry is fighting back.
The money being spent for AI development makes our national budget seem somewhat small in comparison, crowding out funding for alternative industries.
The combination of AI and quantum computing are feared to herald the end of successful encryption (think of your bank accounts and credits cards with their security the equivalent of a wide-open door), as well as allowing the hacking of bitcoin algorithms (rendering those artificial constructs worthless) and a general breakdown of global security (can you say cyberwar?).
But, there is hope. AI, for all the pie-in-the-sky promises, is a bit limited in its accuracy and usefulness.
I say this because, just the other day I was watching a broadcast of a college baseball tournament game and the announcers posed the trivia question that there are just three Division I college baseball teams with the Trojans nickname and all remain active in this year’s event. Name them.
As an alumnus of Johnstown High School, the Trojans, I was interested. I could think of two colleges, Southern California and Troy (Ala.), the latter having no real choice other than Trojans considering ancient Troy gave us Trojans.
The third school’s name escaped me, so I ran to my computer, which just happened to have the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser open. This meant that when I typed in the inquiry “NCAA Division I Baseball Teams Nicknamed Trojans” I was shuttled to Microsoft’s Copilot AI.
Its answer: “The only NCAA Division I college baseball program in the United States currently using the nickname Trojans is Troy University.”
You could have knocked me over with a sledgehammer. Copilot never had heard of Southern California, something of a prominent school using the Trojans nickname. The USC Trojans have won the College Baseball World Series a record 12 times, including in 1968, the release year of the 2001 movie alluded to earlier.
To repeat. Copilot missed USC, but identified Troy. Copilot also missed the third school with a Trojans nickname for its sporting teams, Arkansas Little Rock.
If Copilot and other AI efforts make such rudimentary errors – and we all have read of many such gaffes – I’m not worried about AI taking over, then deciding humans are no more than sand in the gears, and thus looking to eliminate us.
If I’m wrong, I’ll just note that I’m a Trojan and AI will be unable to identify me.
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