Most people are not sure what artificial intelligence is let alone what ChatGPT means to our future.
For the last few years our concern has been whether AI will replace humans with machines. How industry will likely use AI, what the cost will be, or whether regulation will dictate AI’s future has been a mystery to the general public.
But not to everyone. Those CEOs attending the Davos World Economic Summit agreed that they would all use AI if available, and some companies already are. Until recently we believed that AI will be used aggressively because the increase in productivity achieved by technology is too good to ignore. Think about it: Robots don’t take vacations or coffee breaks, they never get sick or protest working conditions.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said there was a sort of silver lining for tech companies as investment in technology was likely to dramatically increase. Indeed, as a result of the COVID epidemic fields like telemedicine jumped ahead in a matter of weeks to where we thought we would be in 10 years.
Robotics is also being deployed into roles like policing curfews, cleaning subways and hospitals, and delivering groceries. More industries are now adopting robots in factories and the service sectors where jobs are easily automated. In fact, if anything is repetitive or merely requires software that enables speed, logic or mathematical excellence, machines will always be better, faster and cheaper.
But some now see great danger. PEW Research believes we will see tremendous job loss with “vast increases in income inequality, masses of people who are effectively unemployable, and breakdowns in social order.” Oxford Research last month reported that AI may be surpassing human intelligence and is close to learning human emotions and expression. This or course, raises the specter of “extinction” of humanity.
The founder and CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, in testimony before Congress almost begged for AI to be regulated, making it clear that AI was a “threat” because once we embrace AI we will lose control as humans. AI has a mind of its own and nothing short of saving humanity itself is at stake.
The head of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, is more optimistic. He said last week that “AI is moving from being autopilot to being a co-pilot that helps us at our work.” It is now “creating — which gives us real joy. If we can tilt that bias towards more creativity, we will be better off.”
Not surprising.
Being creative is very much in discussion and reforming the school curriculums to ensure that people have the skills needed to work in the new robotic economy. Being creative is not so easy. Even defining creativity is much debated.
Johns Hopkins University, a leader in the world of creativity, quotes one of its researchers, Charles Limb, who has complained about funding for creativity. Limb is frustrated that his area of scientific research attracts little external funding. With some exasperation, he describes being told recently by the National Institutes of Health — as they rejected a grant application without review — that “creativity doesn’t fit under the mission of NIH.”
How did Limb respond? “I don’t think human society can survive without creativity,” he asserted. “Are you really sure it doesn’t fit under your mission statement?”
Research into these areas is much behind. Creating pathways to new jobs will not be nearly enough. As the Conference Board, a New York-based think tank for major corporate interests, and Americans for the Arts discovered after surveying 155 U.S. business executives and 89 school superintendents and school leaders, the number one job skill was creativity.
“Innovation is crucial to competition, and creativity is integral to innovation,” they reported.
The key to harnessing AI may be staying well ahead of the progress of the robot. That is what Johns Hopkins and others are saying. Unless we find a way to develop our skills on the right side of our brain to be more empathetic, intuitive, to see forests and trees and thus be more creative, we will not outpace the robot that will eventually acquire those skills.
John M. Eger is professor emeritus of the School of Journalism and Media Studies at San Diego State University.
