Can an artificial intelligence robot generate wonder and trepidation, even
a hint of existential experience
?
The question is not new but it is current, and its answer is forceful.
The launch of ChatGPT, at the end of 2022, showers the world with a mixture of surprise and excitement.
To understand the reasons, those who have not used it yet should do so now (even interrupting this reading) at chat.openai.com.
Those who experienced it will share the bewilderment.
What is ChatGPT?
The strict definition indicates that it is an AI project developed by the
OpenAI laboratory
(Elon Musk and other billionaire entrepreneurs behind it) that proposed that
the experience of “talking” with a robot replicates the naturalness and fluidity
of human conversation.
To achieve this, the bot's "neural networks" incorporate gigantic amounts of digital information including books, news, Wikipedia and chat logs.
All of the above is true but petty.
ChatGPT operates on the mythical idea that machines will one day match human consciousness.
And it seems to succeed.
Hence the shock.
Since when does a robot respond with expressions like
"I understand"
and
"I'm glad"
?
Aren't understanding and joy reserved capacities and feelings and only communicable by humans?
"You can extrapolate,"
the scientist Oriol Vinyals, a researcher at the English laboratory DeepMind, was surprised, quoted by The Washington Post.
“It combines concepts in ways we would never imagine.”
Since its launch, millions of users have challenged it with demands such as writing poetry of a certain style, producing an essay text with certain qualities, or developing a programming code.
As if the information absorbed had ended up building a "sensitivity",
he also remembers questions so that the conversation evolves.
Here it is necessary to put a point.
Its own creators warn that as it is a synthesis of the content available on the network,
some answers may be wrong
.
Or do not notice nuances and biases in a text that a reader would discover.
The practical use generates a debate that is just beginning.
New York public schools banned
it days ago, with its teachers concerned about the “convincing” responses students might present with its use.
Sabrina Seltzer, an expert in Educational Technology, told Ricardo Braginski from
Clarín
:
"If the machines provide the information, at school we must begin to evaluate other skills."
Specialists anticipate the reformulation in a multitude of jobs and
a potential crisis in Google, turning its search engine into an obsolete tool.
All forecasts are possible and at the same time insufficient.
Only one thing is certain.
Never has an artificial intelligence come so close to the human.
And at the same time, and by opposition,
the subjectivity and particularity of each man and woman has never been more valuable.
(Or was this text written by ChatGPT?)
