Ok, the title is funny but the content of this blog post is actually full of warnings. First, let me clearly state my view on technology here: I am a computer engineer :) I literally work on technological advances and try to make research and development. So don't confuse me with an anti-tech cultist people. I am not and never will be against technology. With that being sad, in this post, i will mention the unexpected or unsuspected side effects of AI in general. ChatGPT has already given me enough to prove my point and i was concerned even before it became popular.
There are several aspects of my concerns. I will explain my reasons for each in the next chapters. First one is: Are we losing control of ourselves? Second one is: How much can we trust technology? Third one is: What happens if it all collapse? But before that, i strongly suggest you to read my long conversation with ChatGPT. I say conversation on purpose and you 'll see what i mean there, in that post. It was fun and enlightening. I will also be referring to that post too. So let's start being concerned.
Of ourselves, not technology. Here is what i mean. Technology is being developed by humankind and it doesn't look like it will spiral out of control like in the movies. On the contrary, we are losing control of being a human, an organic entity. Because i have seen so many blog posts or tweets where people are treating chatgpt sort of like a companion. There are mobile or web applications built on top of NLP (Natural Language Processing) that gives you a character to interact with. Chatgpt is not only advertised for its vast knowledge, it is also promoted for being able to hold a conversation. Does this sound normal to you, given that there are like 9 billion people on earth?
Is chatgpt the substitution for human to human interaction? Did we just forget how to talk to each other? Apparently yes. If you remember the movie Don't Look Up, they ask the same question there too. And i have written a blog post about that movie here. Technology was supposed to help us not replace us. It looks like so many people are seeking for a virtual friend online. It looks like there was already a demand for it and Chatgpt or other chatbots have just fulfilled it. This is both sociologically and psychologically wrong but i am not the expert to talk about that. On the other hand, i have an explanation to why this happened at the first place. Why did we lost touch?
It probably all began with selfishness. We, as humankind, just demand and demand without considering giving anything back in return. This creates one sided relationships, which don't work. We assume we can adjust the world according to ourselves, say anything we want to say and however we want to say. Well, humans don't work that way. This brings loneliness and a bigger ego. Ego finds its way into deception and toxic relationships. That doesn't work either. We complain about others, instead of focusing on ourselves. That consequently makes us blind and destined to loneliness. In my blog i have written about communication and tried to explain that it is not a subject to be underestimated by giving a simple example. You can check that out too. That is where chatbots comes into play. They don't complain, they mostly agree with you, they are there whenever you want. Woow... A heaven for ego-centric, selfish and narcissist people.
I am not saying this is the situation for everyone. The biggest danger comes afterwards. This whole thing is justified under the sugar coating called "technological marvel". It is definitely not a healthy result to look for connection with an artificial entity. Also, if you take a look at my conversation with chatgpt, you will see clues that it is just answering your prompts. You do not have a place in its database or it doesn't consider your well being for the sake of humanity or moral values. It tells you the positive things, which is a good thing, but it is not designed to take human psychology into account. Even if it was designed that way, that would result in an emotional AI and it could go wrong real fast. There is a chatbot of Microsoft and it gives emotional answers. Without any kind of knowledge if it is the right place or not.
Overall, chatbots will gain more information but i wonder if they can gain more talent. I really appreciate and understand how much research and hard work behind it. But all they have is fabricated human values at best. I have asked "Can you determine whether your answer is helpful or harmful?" and chatgpt said it is up to the user to be aware of what is going on. It also said "As an AI language model, I do not have feelings or emotions, so I cannot be considered a friend in the traditional sense", hence the title of this post :) Onto the second question..
Technology has become so advanced, people are talking about revolutions or milestones frequently these days. Side note, we should re-evaluate these milestones these days because a revolution or a milestone can't be achieved every month or so :) Anyways, today we have lots of things that were just dreams of yesterday. This could be actually good in the hands of normal people of a utopia. Scientists are able to modify genes and it can create better lives for people like curing diseases or it can create unfair and unbalanced society. Engineers are coming up with strong armors and materials, but are they being used for cars to save lives or killing machines.
That is one side of the story. The chatbot side of the story is being unaware of what it knows. Which means it can give you misinformation without even realizing it. I have asked chatgpt if it was connected to internet and turns out it is not. So whatever it knows, it just knows. It can't update itself or learn new things. How can anyone fact-check a giant chatbot with humongous amount of information? Can you just trust the information it presents you? The first chapter of this post emphasizes on this, remember that you are a human and make your own research. Now you might ask, why you would use chatgpt then? Well, i can tell you how not to use :) There are number of videos talking about chatbots being biased but i will give you one example. Here is the link too.
Again, i really understand the effort behind chatbots but i will always ask where did you get this data? Can i also trust you that you are not supplied with any personal data from our phones or computers? Because data is the new hype these days, since we are producing huge amounts of it every second. This data is going somewhere believe me. You can consider this as a conspiracy theory but i wouldn't be surprised if our data is collected in unorthodox ways. Anyways, the last question.
Well, you are probably saying that chatbots won't go away ever. Even if they disappear, who cares. Let's take a step back and simulate today's situation. There are lots of people, mostly programmers, concerned about losing their job, since chatgpt is very capable of producing mainstream code. It can even give you hints or advanced codes, but what we consider advanced is just another bit of information for it. You can also consider there are other jobs at risk. Don't roast me but i think this is sort of ok, because this kind of technology can really speed things up a lot. And those people must acquire some new skills.
But that is not my point. This basically proves that some mainstream skills would be left to machines. Later, more skilled jobs might be carried out by artificial intelligence. It feels like a jenga game to me. The base it built by AI and people will slowly forget those details. We will be dependent on AI rather than being the owner of them. This is mostly valid for technology too. Are we using it, or are we surrendering ourselves to it? The technological stone age is not that much far away if we are not in control. This is mostly a future projection but i think it is worth noting.
I really feel like i should defend myself at this point :) I have chosen only computer engineering in college, even i had the opportunity to chose a bunch of different faculties. I have developed an image processing app, an ant colony simulation and my thesis was on facial expression recognition, which is machine learning. I was fascinated by the capabilities of chatgpt, not the knowledge, but the linguistic power of it. It was probably the most intellectual conversation i have ever had and i really enjoyed it. All the while, keeping in mind that it is just giving me answers, which are derived with thousands of watts of electricity and a huge data and NLP.
But it can go bad at some point. I have said this in a number of my blog posts, we are enslaved by our inventions. I can (and probably will) write about if chatgpt can end software development (it can't) later. Use it but don't be used. That's all i can say. See you at the next post :)
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