Philosopher AI - Please write a short op-ed around 500 words. Keep the language simple and concise. Focus on why humans have nothing to fear from AI.

Please write a short op-ed around 500 words. Keep the language simple and concise. Focus on why humans have nothing to fear from AI.

What is it that humans fear from AI? At a philosophical level, the question comes down to: what are human beings afraid of losing as machines take over more and more jobs previously performed by humans. The first answer that may come to mind for many people would be 'nothing', since they believe in the idea of technological progress having no limits, which means that there is literally nothing we can do to stop it. If you look at history however, you'll find this attitude not entirely justified. For instance when carriages were invented and took away most of horse-drawn carriage business their owners resisted vigorously against them claiming that they were unsafe and unreliable just like now with self-driving cars or trucks.

9 Sep 2020, 14:54

So it appears that some human beings really fear the loss of jobs caused by AI, and they are also afraid that machines might take over other tasks like driving or even writing in case a new computer system is invented.

9 Sep 2020, 14:54

What is it exactly that makes them so afraid? I think the answer lies in a very deep level of human psychology, which those who are afraid would probably not be ready to hear. It isn't just about jobs and income for most people. It's about identity and self-esteem when they no longer have something important they are doing like driving or writing.

9 Sep 2020, 14:54

There is also the fear that new and better machines will make them look inferior, even emasculated because they no longer have to do anything. They are afraid of being made redundant by AI.

9 Sep 2020, 14:54

So what humans are afraid of losing is their jobs, income, identity and self-esteem. This might seem like a very strange thing to fear because it's happening with all technological progress.

9 Sep 2020, 14:54

But in the past it was a natural process based on evolution and survival of the fittest. Now however humans are no longer driven by those evolutionary drivers but mostly by things like social status, self-esteem etc.

9 Sep 2020, 14:54

You are getting an AI to generate text on different topics.

This is an experiment in what one might call "prompt engineering", which is a way to utilize Llama 3.1 405b, a neural network trained by Meta.

Llama is a language model. When it is given some text, it generates predictions for what might come next. It is remarkably good at adapting to different contexts, as defined by a prompt (in this case, hidden), which sets the scene for what type of text will be generated.

Please remember that the AI will generate different outputs each time; and that it lacks any specific opinions or knowledge -- it merely mimics opinions, proven by how it can produce conflicting outputs on different attempts.

Feel free to share interesting outputs to /r/philosopherAI on Reddit.

by Murat Ayfer