Imagine we created the smartest person alive. We taught her everything, every single known fact, to the point where she could make her own formulas and correct the best professors. But we took one important thing away from her: her ability to see color.
Let’s say we described color to her (its characteristics, what it looks like, etc.). Do you think she would be able to feel it the same way as we do? If you answered no, what makes you think Artificial Intelligence (AI) could replace us?
AI’s expansion in recent years worries everyday people and experts alike. If it were to gain consciousness, its ability to formulate theories and technology could spark the end of humanity. But why are we afraid of something near impossible?
Information can’t create consciousness, just as you can’t describe color. It’s something only humans and animals obtain through their brains. AI is a system or network of information; it uses the information plugged in to answer questions, just like a calculator (yet people don’t seem to possess a deathly fear of calculators).
To prove this, when people experience blindness, many don’t see black; they experience emptiness or darkness, a sensation unable to be described to a person who hasn’t experienced blindness. Since AI doesn’t comprehend the true meaning (or the emptiness in the previous example) behind the facts it spews out, it can’t use them for its own advantage.
Furthermore, AI isn’t perfect; it’s well-known for mistakes and self-capitulation, and you can almost always recognize AI-generated photos or art (in fact, AI is being trained to detect other AI essays or artwork through the work’s flaws).
When you rationally think about it, AI’s only downside is decreasing creativity. Instead of students putting in effort to research through books or even just clicking on a few buttons to search on Google, it’s become much easier to rely on AI to provide information.
For example, since AI can’t be used to write essays or projects, students will instead ask it to find facts about the topic, resources to quote, and websites/books to put on a Works Cited list. They will then rephrase whatever the AI hurled out without learning any useful information about their research.
Does that mean we should abolish AI because of lazy students? No! AI’s abilities far outweigh its negatives. Don’t believe me? Look no further than the Nobel Prize for chemistry. Not only did AI aid researchers in understanding the correlation between amino acids and three-dimensional structures, it also predicted protein models for almost every single protein known to mankind, a feat unsuccessfully attempted by human scientists for more than twenty years (which also led to a Nobel Prize for scientists David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper).
So maybe the next time you need help in organizing a list, setting a timer, or even making a call, try using AI; I promise it won’t turn you into a mindless robot if you use it in moderation (at least for the foreseeable future).