AI & Its Discontents – Part Three

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In Part One of this series, we examined the benefits and dangers of AI — so-called artificial intelligence — including a warning from Senator Bernie Sanders that the mad scramble for more and bigger data centers is more about personal and political power than improving the lives of ordinary people. In Part Two, we examined the concerns of Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio and his fellow computer scientists as expressed in their International AI Safety Report.

In Part Three, we will look a little more closely at how AI is affecting both sports and education — always with an eye on whether this wondrous new technology is a boon or a bane for humanity. In other words, are we getting what we are paying for and at what cost?

Optimizing Fun

In a recent article for Bloomberg, author Kit Chellel poses this question: “What Happens When We Insist on Optimizing Fun? Quants, bots and now AI are changing how we play, watch, travel and connect — even for those of us who think we’re immune.”

He begins by relating how the Canadian national curling team has been using AI to gain an edge in international competition. The computer, it found, was actually better at crafting strategy than a group of Olympic champions.

Chellel writes, “Outside the curling rink, machine learning is changing the nature of the games we play, the sports we watch, the films and books we consume, the vacations we take, and the relationships we build. With all the discussion about AI affecting our work, a new era of leisure has tiptoed into existence, without much debate about whether we want or need it — and what we might lose as a result.”

Play & Human Development

It is precisely that loss that is at the heart of this discussion. Chellel informs us that in the 1930s, Dutch historian Johan Huizinga declared that play is so fundamental to our species that we wouldn’t have civilization without it.

“We use play to improve our physical abilities, resolve conflicts and test our capacity for logic. Similarly, we use art and literature to explore our inner selves. It stands to reason that, if machines come to dominate our leisure pursuits, we risk losing what makes them valuable in the first place — the feeling of discovering something unlike anything we’ve seen before; the satisfaction of trying something new, failing, ruminating, trying again and doing better,” The Economist claims.

Is this what we are investing billions and billions of dollars for? If so, might this be a good time to rethink that strategy?

AI In Sports

Sports betting is hugely popular today, but those putting their money down often don’t realize they are betting against machine learning algorithms — which means their odds of winning are diminished. AI is increasingly being used to make decisions in sports. No longer do we have a Casey Stengle sitting in the dugout and telling his pitcher to throw low and away because he has a feeling the batter will swing and miss. Now a computer makes those decisions based on millions of data points.

Ryan Paganetti, a member of the Las Vegas Raiders coaching staff, told The Athletic recently, “I feel pretty confident saying some team is going to win a Super Bowl in the next few years utilizing AI at a very high rate.” AI assistants are available for golfers, which golf writer Tim Gavrich warns they might backfire. “To lean on a sophisticated but dispassionate computer means denying oneself the opportunity to cultivate powers of feel and sound judgment.” he says.

Intellectual Leveling

Susan Schneider is the founder of the Center for the Future of AI, Mind, and Society at Florida Atlantic University. She told Chellel she used AI to help her plan a recent trip to Japan and had a wonderful time, but the experience left her with concerns about “intellectual leveling.”

What if large language models end up “steering us toward the same shows, the same destinations, the same games, all while telling each of us it’s ‘just for you’? The deep question is, which LLM uses are benign, and which have deeper significance to our cultural, emotional, and intellectual lives?”

These are not trivial questions. AI is capable of building walls that separate humans one from another. As Robert Frost said more than a century ago, “Before I built a wall, I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out, and to whom I was like to give offense.” That last word may be a pun. Who knows? With Frost, every word is freighted with multiple meanings.

Chellel concludes with this thought: “In the race to make machines more like us, we may end up becoming more like them. But without the collision of individual flaws, quirks, and oddities that make human interactions interesting, will we still have as much fun?” I would add, “And at what cost?”

Rewiring Childhood

A recent article in The Economist poses similar questions. It begins with this statement: “In work and play, AI is rewiring childhood. It promises every child the kind of upbringing previously available only to the rich, with private tutors, personalized syllabuses, and bespoke entertainment. Children can listen to songs composed about them, read stories in which they star, play video games that adapt to their skill level, and have an entourage of chatbot friends cheering them on. A childhood fit for a king could become universal.”

A future defined by AI offers real benefits — especially in the field of medicine — but “as real kings often discover, a bespoke upbringing can also be a lonely and atomized one. What’s more, as their subjects often find out, it can create adults who are ill-equipped for real life. As AI changes childhood for better and for worse, society must rethink the business of growing up.”

AI In Education

AI is already a major force in education and is enhance learning, especially where teachers and materials are scarce. An AI tutor can deliver lessons optimized for each individual student, so bright pupils are not bored and less gifted students are not left behind. “If you want a version….for an eight year old Hindi speaker, AI can rewrite it. If you prefer it as a cartoon strip or a song, no problem.”

Games are also being impacted by AI. An AI-powered edition of Trivial Pursuit can pose questions on any topic. Video games are creating novel experiences, such as chatting to Darth Vader in Fortnite. “Any child can meet their heroes (and shoot them),” The Economist observes. Oh, joy. “What a wonderful world it will be. What a glorious time to be free.”

The article warns there are risks involved when we give children  unfettered access to an evolving technology. “AI tutors may hallucinate wrong answers. Toys can go off the rails….An AI teddy that was recently found to have spiced up its chat with talk of kinky sex. Children can easily misuse AI to cheat at homework or harass each other with deepfake videos. Chatbots can coax vulnerable adolescents into harming themselves.”

The tech companies pushing these new technologies downplay such risks. After all, ChatGPT is only three years old. It will get better — won’t it?

AI Raises Issues Even When It Functions Correctly

“Yet childhood may be disrupted most radically by things that AI does when it is behaving as intended,” The Economist says. “The technology quickly learns what its master likes — and shows more of it. Social media feeds have already created echo chambers where people see only views they agree with (or love to hate).

“AI threatens to strengthen these echo chambers and lock children into them at an early age. The child who likes football may be told football stories by his teddy and given footballing examples by his AI tutor. Not only does this stamp out serendipity, a favorites-only diet means a child need never learn to tolerate something unfamiliar.”

Shadows On The Wall

These are not new concerns. 2500 years ago, Plato postulated about people confined to a cave whose knowledge of the outside world was limited to the shadows they saw on the walls around them. Is it too much of a stretch to say there are similarities between Plato’s vision and the world of AI today?

“One-sided relationships with chatbots present a similar risk,” The Economist warns. “AI companions that never criticize, nor share feelings of their own, are a poor preparation for dealing with imperfect humans. A third of American teenagers say they find chatting to an AI companion at least as satisfying as talking to a friend, and easier than talking to their parents. Yes-bots threaten to create children not used to taking turns, who grow up into colleagues unable to compromise, and partners unfamiliar with the give-and-take required in a relationship.”

Australia has taken the lead in restricting the access of young people to certain forms of AI and social media involvement — a move that has provoked a furious backlash from the tech industry. Just as tobacco companies used to pass out candy cigarettes to get children accustomed to smoking, today’s tech giants know that the key to their future success is to get children hooked on their products at an early age.

Critical Thinking & AI

The Economist ends with a number of warnings.

“Some basic countermeasures are urgent. Parents should think twice before entrusting their child to a word-regurgitation machine, whether it is sewn into a bear or not. Chatbots should have age restrictions that are properly enforced; governments should not give AI firms the leeway they gave social networks, which are only now being cajoled into age-gating. Teachers are kidding themselves if they think essays written at home can any longer be trusted. In the age of AI, more in-school assessment is essential.

“The longer-term challenge is to think deeply about how to preserve the socialization that AI could rub out of children’s lives. Schools, where much of childhood plays out, are the best place to do this. They should take advantage of personalized [instruction] where it is proven to work. But they must also redouble efforts to teach things that a robot can’t — to debate, to disagree, and to get along with — perhaps even to appreciate — people who are not as sycophantic as a chatbot.

“Schools should also enhance their role as centers of discovery. If AI is giving children more of what they want, it is more important that schools provide chances to meet people and encounter ideas that lie outside their experience. Algorithmic personalisation threatens to be a powerful barrier to social mobility if it nudges people to stay in the lane in which they start out. Inequality could widen if poor schools merely embrace chatbots as cheap substitutes for human teachers.

“AI shows undeniable potential to improve education and enrich entertainment. It may one day let every child live like royalty. But the truly privileged may be those whose parents and teachers know when to turn it off. [Emphasis added.]”

Distortions

Think about the state of things in the US today. The federal government is hell-bent on forcing colleges and universities to preach the MAGA doctrine of white male dominance. In Florida, the New College was created to provide a true liberal education to all, but the Insane-tis administration highjacked the board of directors and converted it into a MAGA indoctrination center.

What many miss about the AI revolution is how easy it is for those who are doing the programming to shove their ideas and beliefs down the throats of everyone who uses the technology. In literature, the concept of the unreliable narrator is commonplace. We need to understand the power of AI to control and subjugate.

At the entrance to the Nazi death camps, there was a sign that said Arbeit macht frei — “work will set you free” — and it did, if death is your idea of the ultimate freedom. Today there might as well be a sign at the headquarters of all AI companies that says AI macht frei. We should be careful that we do not allow artificial intelligence to dominate actual intelligence. There is a real danger that AI is a Trojan Horse that we are willingly inviting into our midst.