IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE A FRIEND OR FOE?

By Maya Madkoriya

The globe has gone gaga with Artificial Intelligence (AI), giving the impression that it has just woken from a long technical slumber.

Until now, we get the impression that our knowledge was clouded with comparatively low-level Acrobat, Windows, dictionary, and online searches on friends like Google, but now we get a different perspective of information using science and how to get it at the press of a button.

The message that seems to be coming out from the technically savvy people is that it is now or never using AI and that you are a technical pauper without it.

This AI was invented to solve people’s problems by machines.  So that people’s lives can become more manageable.  The impossible had to be made possible with the help of science.  Such as any disease being detected by machines and treated on time.

Machines are a boon as they help farmers grow crops according to weather information.

The humble typewriter evolved into an Amstrad dot the dot-matrix printer computer using floppy discs along its journey, giving entry to Apple, Samsung, and all manner of computers, laptops, and tablets, which people could handle were invented This was seen during its time as climbing the ladder of technical innovation.

Similarly, with the help of machines, the living standards of people worldwide are improved, and they are employed so that humans complete tasks without hiccups.

Is AI a boon or a curse?

There is trepidation around the world that AI could be a monster hijacking every field, making human beings redundant.

The fear of AI is so prevalent in governments that in the first week of November, amidst the explosions of the Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East, heads of 28 countries, prominent leaders and technology giants gathered in Britain’s Bletchley Park.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hosted the meeting amid internal political turmoil.  US Vice President Kamala Harris, European Commission President Ursula von der and Elon Musk were also there.

It is known that governments are terrified of this new scientific discovery, i.e., machines with brains, leading to efforts to enshrine it in law and limit its usage. This is expected to happen at such lightning speed that it would be surprising.

Bletchley Park, located about 70 km from London, is a very exciting place.  The AI, which the heads of governments are worried about while trying to control it, was born in this very place.

It is said that Hitler’s defeat was because of a mathematician, Alan Turing.  It was in this park’s codebreaking centre that Turing created the machine for breaking the Enigma code, the powerhouse of Nazi communications.

After this, Hitler was defeated in three years.  It was Turing who first showed the path to AI.  His first research paper was published in 1950, in which he invented the Turing test to determine the parameters of intelligence of machines.

A manifesto was issued in the same Bletchley Park in which it was written that before AI enslaves us, it must be controlled.

But the question is, can it be controlled? Only time will tell.

Maya Madkoriya is a practising Advocate at the Bhopal High Court in India. She is also a published author and popular community leader.