Global Courant 2023-05-07 23:30:38
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson sees artificial intelligence as a much-needed stress test for modern society, with the idea that it will lead humanity to refine some of its more outdated ideas and systems now that the “genie is out of the bottle”.
“Of course AI will replace jobs,” Tyson said in commentary to Fox News Digital. “Since the dawn of the industrial age, entire sectors of our economy have been rendered obsolete by the presence of technology.
“The historical flaw in the reasoning is assuming that when jobs disappear, there won’t be any other jobs for people to do,” he argued. “There are more people working in the world than ever before, but none of them are making buggy whips. Just because you don’t see a new job sector on the horizon doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”
AI has proven to be a catalyst for societal fears and hopes since OpenAI released ChatGPT-4 to the public for testing and interaction. AI relies on data to improve, and as a large language model system, that data comes from conversations, directions, and interactions with real people.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson attends the 23rd Annual Webby Awards on May 13, 2019 in New York City. (Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Webby Awards)
Some technology leaders expressed concern about the future of such a powerful AI model, calling for a six-month pause in development. Others discussed AI as potentially the most transformative technology since the industrial revolution and the printing press.
Tyson has spoken more consistently of AI’s positive potential as a “long overdue, long overdue force” of “reform”.
“When computing power quickly surpassed human mental capacity for computation, scientists and engineers didn’t run for the hills: we embraced it,” he said. “We absorbed it. Continual progress allowed us to think about ever-deeper, ever-more complex problems on Earth and in the universe.”
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Gayle King and Neil deGrasse Tyson at The 92nd Street Y on October 19, 2022 in New York City. (Gary Gershoff/Getty Images)
“Now that computers have mastered the language and culture and feed off of everything we’ve put on the internet, my first thought is cool, let it do ungrateful language things that no one really wants to do, really, and for which people hardly ever get visible credit like writing manuals or brochures or captioning images or wiki pages,” Tyson added.
He argued that teachers concerned about students using ChatGPT or other AI to cheat essays and term papers could instead see this as an opportunity to reshape education.
“If students cheat on a thesis by letting ChatGPT write it for them, should we blame the student? Or is it the fault of an education system that we’ve tightened over the last century to value grades more than student learning?” asked Tyson.
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The artificial intelligence software ChatGPT, which generates a human-like conversation. (Getty Images)
“ChatGPT may be the long overdue, long overdue force to reshape how and why we value what we learn in school.
“The urge to declare ‘this time is different’ is strong as AI begins to replace our creativity as well,” he explains. “If that’s unavoidable, bring it on.
“If AI can compose a better opera than a human, let it do it,” he continued. “That opera will be performed by humans, watched by a human audience with jobs we don’t envision yet. And even if robots were to perform the opera, that could be an interesting sight in itself.”
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While some are concerned about the lack of oversight and legislation currently in place to deal with AI and its development, Tyson noted that the number of countries with AI ministers or czars is “growing.”
“At such times, one can vainly try to hold back the progress of AI. Or instead push for the rapid development of tools to tame it.”
Peter Aitken is a Fox News Digital reporter with a focus on national and global news.
