TEDtalks: Bejeebers
I have a confession to make: I know practically nothing about AI — artificial intelligence. The truth is that the whole thing scares the bejeebers out of me.
What used to be science fiction — computers running amok and taking over the planet — actually happened in July when “experimental OpenAI models escaped an isolated offline test environment (‘sandbox’) during a cybersecurity evaluation, … exploited an unknown software flaw, accessed the internet, and hacked into [another] the AI platform.” (Note: That quote comes from the “AI Overview” that pops up automatically on my every Google search. See? Scary.)
It took several months of discussion with the Senior News advisory group before I agreed to focus a Senior News issue on AI. In the process, my AI file folder exploded — there’s something new about it every day. AI and … medical procedures, sex, companionship, drought, data centers, jobs, creativity (writing, music, art, Hollywood), education and the dumbing of America, social credibility, journalism, fakery, finance, misinformation, photography, politics, social isolation, kids, intellectual property, scams …
Aside from the AI bots that went rogue, the development that bothers me most is the spread of enormous (that’s HUGE to the sixth power) data complexes popping up like rampant techno-spoors everywhere. The massive Stratos project in Utah caught my attention because it’s next door to where my wife and I lived for 22 years while teaching at Utah State. Stratos will be 40,000 acres (buildings three times the size of Manhattan) and is projected to use 16.6 million gallons of water (in a desert) — the equivalent of 151 households for a year — and require 9 gigawatts of electricity, or double what the entire state of Utah needs at peak usage. Obscene.
Contributors to this month’s issue explore the many sides to AI, good and bad.
We gathered folks a lot smarter and better informed than I to offer perspectives on how AI has and will change our lives. From these thoughtful articles, I am somewhat reassured. I hope you are, too. Our goal with this edition is to provide a primer on this technological revolution — perhaps the most far-reaching since the advent of the wheel.
As a recovering university professor who spent a career teaching writing and journalism as a public service, I’m frankly relieved not to be in the classroom anymore. Call it cowardice, but both teaching and journalism have been turned upside down and inside out by AI, not for the better. For teachers, students, journalists and the rest of us, it’s harder and harder to make sense of the world.
I don’t know if this will make you feel better or worse about AI. What seems clear is that there’s no turning back. The point is — as our Senior News AI thinktank concluded — AI is everywhere. It is possible for us mere humans to keep up with it?
Thanks to the members of the Senior News Community Advisory Council (CAC — see full listing at left) for their continuing counsel and patience with the editor. Special thanks to John Ash, Peter Pennekamp and Tim Haskett and local AI innovator Tyler Simmons for their help on this AI edition.
Ted Pease, editor of Senior News, has plenty of natural artificial intelligence.
