Catching Up With AI
Reality and Myths
If you listen to the advocates, they claim AI (artificial intelligence) is ready to replace workers everywhere and rule the world. Realistically, however, AI will have a personality and the main skill will be processing large amounts of information to determine a pattern or answer. Yes, jobs will be eliminated but replaced with jobs AI simply cannot do. Elon Musk and others worry about the jobs lost, while Mike Rowe has saying there are plenty of jobs in need of being filled (https://mikeroweworks.org/about/).
A lot of consumer businesses are testing the technology and it has some promise in some promises, yet this video shows the challenges within.
Of the video, what freaks me out, is when the man using chatGPT to talk to the drive-thru AI, and does so in Spanish!
Right now, the focus of AI is off and not being done right. Yes, AI can process lots of data rapidly and reach a conclussion which would take decades to accomplish. But the approach with drive-thrus shows the limitations as well as the alienation.
Many people have taken a love for Tesla’s self-driving cars. I think anyone with a health condition should have one. Can you imagine suffering a heart attack while driving and AI kicks into save you and drive you to a hospital? But to be blunt, the Tesla vehicles are largely for the very wealthy and only serve those who purchase them. AI works when 1 = 1 exactly, but if you ever have had to work with actual materials in the real world, you realize 1 = 1.01 sometimes. All AI can do in this circumstance is fudge an answer as so many humans would do the same. Cooks know this because is it teaspoon or a heaping teaspoon or just slightly less? Oh, you have to defer to the cook for such precision and AI simply does not do this.
Instead, how about allowing AI to direct traffic to reduce traffic congestion and offer different routes or changing traffic lights to meet current needs, or advising drivers to slow down due to reduced visibility in a snow storm? There is much more. AI can help determine where best to place street lights and to dim when there is no cars or foot traffic which would save energy.
The way AI is being used now, people have to use it a lot for it to learn much. Unfortunately, most people have no idea how to use it when they encounter it or how to apply it. Well, at least it helped identify a plant in the yard, but the other plant it had no clue.