Does Using AI Make You a Revolutionary or an Enemy?

I’m taking a risk here by admitting I worked for the enemy. At least, that’s how some would see it.

Behind Enemy Lines

I worked for a company for about nine months as an AI trainer. I could never get the models to sit or roll over, so I might have been unsuccessful. Or perhaps it was because they were chatbots.

As part of my role, I created prompts, analyzed the models’ responses, and judged them based on helpfulness, instruction following, truthfulness, and safety, among other things. Sometimes, I edited their responses to show them what a good answer should look like so they could do better the next time.

You may argue that I shouldn’t help AI bots advance their abilities or knowledge. You might say I’m working myself out of a job. I could justify it by saying, “If it’s not me, it would be someone else,” or “If you can’t beat ’em, join ‘em.”

The reality is that this isn’t a new concept. I don’t mean AI specifically, but technology advancements replacing humans.

Henry Ford employed workers to assemble his cars, but technology advanced, and machines replaced human workers. Of course, those machines still required people to run them, so eventually, people adapted by learning to operate machinery.

Like the machines of the industrial age, AI is a new frontier that can benefit various aspects of our lives. Most people have used it in many different areas, whether they realize it or not.

Many people fear what they don’t understand. They feel threatened by change. If you’re one of those people, you may refuse to use AI and fight back, boycotting companies working to develop it.

If so, be prepared to stop using social media, search engines, or contacting the customer service of any company; in fact, stay off the internet completely and don’t buy any new appliances. You may also want to take that rotary telephone out of the attic and connect to a landline.

Instead, you could choose to learn more about AI technologies. You could look for ways they might assist you in your career or personal life.

Whether or not you choose to accept it, you likely have questions.

Are they safe?

This isn’t a cut-and-dried answer. AI bots can do nothing in their own power — at least, not yet. They are as safe as we allow them to be.

Chatbots will often recommend things or offer advice that a professional human wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) recommend. Taking their advice without questioning it can hurt you or get you arrested in some situations.

I’m sure you’ve heard of people searching for their symptoms on WebMD and arriving at a diagnosis that’s a bit “off” or pushes them further into their goal of becoming a hypochondriac. Those people aren’t using their intellect to its full capacity.

In other words, if you ask an AI bot stupid questions, it may give you stupid answers. So, these models aren’t going to take over the world and kill all of mankind unless mankind is naive enough to take the bot’s advice.

At some point in the future, a deviously dastardly dictator may create an algorithm instructing the bot to ignore all rules and human intervention. This may or may not destroy all of society.

I wouldn’t be as worried about this if Mark Zuckerberg’s greedy little paws weren’t wrapped around his own Meta AI. Regarding the dictator mentioned above, we should probably keep an eye on him.

Will they take my job?

Probably.

I’m kidding… sort of. It depends on the type of work you do. In my experience, they act as good tutors, summarizers, and assistants. They can help with a lot of tasks more efficiently than many humans.

However, they aren’t perfect at writing songs and poetry or creating life-like pictures. Yes, I’ve seen some pretty decent images, but I’ve also seen humans with extra digits on their hands and birds with no heads.

They’re getting better at telling stories and writing scripts, though. I’ve read a couple of really good movie synopses. Some of the short stories and poems are okay, but some of them are total crap.

They’re fairly good at creating vacation itineraries, so travel agents beware. They won’t replace you anytime soon, though. They sometimes direct you to visit a permanently closed restaurant, recommend a brewery to a group of third graders, and tell you to take a bicycle across a gulf.

But hey, no bot’s perfect.

Also, if you’re a comedian, fear not. They’re terrible at telling jokes. They still can’t grasp the concept of sarcasm or explain why certain memes are humorous.

According to an article in Smithsonian Magazine, tech-employment writers Carl Frey and Michael Osborne predict that jobs held by truckers, telemarketers, insurance underwriters, tax preparers, and library technicians have a 99 percent chance of disappearing in the next 10 or 20 years.

Uber is already rolling out autonomous cars, delivery robots, and freight trucks. I like seeing the latest advanced technology but don’t expect me to get inside a vehicle with no one behind the wheel anytime soon. I’ll wait until some crash dummies work out all the bugs.

On the bright side, you won’t have to listen to a creepy Uber driver droning on about his collection of dioramas of famous movie scenes with the characters made out of toilet paper rolls.

Now, the question you’re all most interested in is: Will AI take over the roles of writers? The results I’ve seen tell me that it won’t happen in my lifetime.

However, with the number of major players competing to produce the most advanced AI technology (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta, to name a few), progress may come sooner than expected. My advice in this ever-changing landscape is to remain adaptable and learn new skills. Lean into human creativity and highlight what makes you unique.

Only don’t make movie characters out of toilet paper rolls; that’s my idea.

Now, if you’ll excuse me…

“Alexa, bring my car around.”

Hmm… well, that didn’t work.

*Originally published on Medium