AI – Just the beginning
A monumental technological revolution, language-based, that will affect every conceivable facet of our lives has already taken hold, its full impact not yet understood. People are presently confused, their future uncertain, concerned over how AI will affect their positions, fearing that there will be far less or no need whatever for their services. For why pay for their vacations and pensions if this machine that simulates human-like interaction but doesn’t know what it is writing or saying is far more efficient?
As human beings we value stability. People need to know as soon as possible who among us are the most vulnerable to losing their jobs and whose jobs are secure.
Are millions of manufacturing jobs involving operating and monitoring machines to be taken over by AI powered robots? Are tasks involving information, communication and financial statistics a thing of the past? Architects responsible for the technical details of a building may no longer be needed. Those of us whose tasks are repetitive may be the first to go.
Secure they tell us are jobs whose tasks require a high degree of human interaction such as emergency medical care and personal healthcare, work requiring the human touch.
With more and more of us consulting AI, there may be less trust in professionals who have studied for years. A college degree, over centuries thought to be a sure road to a career, will be questioned, this just the beginning.
Moral and ethical issues abound. Automated spiritual advice may even challenge age-old religious traditions, impacting religious communities.
Long before AI our lives were already technology-driven, many of us addicted to unsocial media and our smartphones, checking them every few minutes. More and more meetings are conducted electronically. When human interaction is no longer face to face, the whole affective dimension that makes us living, breathing, feeling persons in relation to others is lost. There’s a huge difference between establishing a moral, as opposed to a purely mechanical relationship. True human interpersonal relationships enabling bonding, friendship and trust emerge from face-to-face conversation, making life worth living.
Certain is that AI won’t solve the world’s problems, much more likely adding to them. AI ChatGPT platforms have in fact already spread antisemitic content in biased essays. Today’s tens of ongoing conflicts involving scores of countries, or Iran’s brutal regime backed by its military, we may be sure, won’t be affected.
Faced with this technological revolution of vast dimensions, its full implications as yet unknown, of great importance is sharpening our critical thinking, suspicious of political agendas built into its programs, keeping well in mind that we need not resort to it, safeguarding our intellectual independence and above all, our humanity.
Needless to say, AI’s social, economic and ethical impacts need urgently to be studied in depth and if necessary, legally controlled by our government.
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Gerard Heumann is an Architect and Urban Designer in Jerusalem.
