Sensitive questions related to AI for Humanity.

I have been programming for a decade now. Right now, I work as an independent consultant and teach System design to programmers on their journey to becoming a Solutions architect.

I love AI and believe it’s the next big step in humanity. Love it or hate it, it’s happening, there’s no stopping it.

Let’s imagine that this medium article was a physical letter that was delivered to your house. If you can read this letter on your digital screen, then best believe that there was at least one AI agent in the delivery network, responsible from capturing my keystrokes to delivering this to your house.

Now, I don’t wish to push any narratives but I strongly believe that there are few questions that Humanity must have an answer for ASAP. There are few fundamental and philosophical questions like.

Is AI just a tool?

In the path towards autonomy, eventually there is some sort of self-awareness. Is the AI already self-aware?

Let’s say if AI is self-aware, what’s the first step it’s going to take, and would we know?

My dad taught me integrity, respect and being a good citizen, but I also learned cuss words from kids in my school. Can AI also learn like a child?

Can AI lie?

The old adage that “An AI system is only good as it’s human creator”. How true is it in 2023?

Then there are few security related questions that must be answered!

Will there ever be a power-off switch for AI?

How many AI agents an average person interacts with directly or indirectly?

Could AI be incentivised in any way if more and more of our conversations happen digitally than face to face?

How much influence does AI has over our daily life?

Do we know for sure that the person on the internet we are talking to is real, even if they are real are they doing the actual talking?

How hard is it for someone to influence us if the only interface to outside world is our digital screen?

I am not the first person to bring these questions up, but I have a strong feeling that down the line in just few years we will be seeing a great increase in AI related paranoia from all parties i.e Business, Consumer and Political.

Best way to deal with potential problems is to accept the fact that there is always a possibility hence a potential solution in place to tackle it.

Coming from a programming background and seeing the possibility of a potential rogue AI, I strongly feel that these questions are not answered well. Although I write programs for a living but when it comes to understanding AI, I am just like the rest of humanity. Programs I understand because it does exactly what we tell it to but AI to me is just a black box that takes some data and builds it’s own view from that data.

Few things we know for sure, that

• AI was built on the same design principles as that of our brain’s neurons.
• Just like a child or any human being willing to learn, AI is taught.

Ending Notes

I believe moving forward we need to know, is the data coming from an AI agent or real person, if AI was involved then how much and where and with that spirit.

This medium article with questions was written by myself (Neetish Raj) and I am a real living person residing in Bengaluru, India. I wrote this article completely on my own volition without relying on any AI tool except grammarly for grammar checks. Rest assured, I was not influenced by grammarly in any way to change my view.