AI - 0.02 - intro - why
Computers run our lives. Even if you don't know about them, and even if you don't use them, computers run our lives. You can, if you make extensive efforts, deliberately take yourself off the grid, and refuse to have any interaction with them. But if you do that, you probably don't have any interaction with most of the rest of the human population. So, while it's up to you, it's not really very realistic to try and avoid them all together.
Artificial intelligence doesn't run our lives; at least not quite yet. As a matter of fact, I strongly suspect that artificial intelligence doesn't really run much of anything, at least not quite yet. But, increasingly, artificial intelligence is going to have a significant effect and influence on you. A lot of very large businesses, and most of the large giant tech businesses that increasingly *do* run our lives, are very, very keen on this idea of artificial intelligence. They are promoting it, and governments are promoting it, and a lot of the world economies are promoting it, because a number of extremely expensive companies have been, very quickly, built to enormous levels of capital investment, on the basis of the idea and hope of artificial intelligence.
And, at this point, I have to make, rather earlier than I wanted to, the point that artificial intelligence is not a thing. At least, artificial intelligence is not *one* thing. Artificial intelligence is many things. The term artificial intelligence covers a whole range of approaches to the idea of getting machines that will help us do our thinking. The latest of these is what is more properly known as generative artificial intelligence (or genAI, for short) as produced by the large language model approach. This is the technology behind a number of chatbots that are available to most people, even though most people, given the choice, are surprisingly afraid of interacting with them. It is also part of the technology, and a large part of the technology, behind the systems producing visual graphics, and even videos, with very little effort on the part of those who are requesting them. But I don't want to get too deeply into what this technology is, and how it works, and how it different differs from the other approaches to artificial intelligence, at least not quite yet. I just want to make the point that there is a difference, and that it really isn't completely correct to call these new technologies simply artificial intelligence.
However, since the media, and the general public, and pretty much everybody is just simply referring to artificial intelligence, when what they really mean is generative artificial intelligence, I'm not going to fight that battle here. I will, in this series, primarily be talking about generative artificial intelligence, and I will, frequently, just say artificial intelligence, or even just AI, when I'm talking about it, because everyone else does.
From my perspective, and I will get into the details of why somewhat later, generative artificial intelligence is, currently, a solution in search of a problem. I know that many claims are being made for the wonders of what artificial intelligence can do. But when you look at the reality of what they actually *do* do, particularly the chatbots and the image creators that generative artificial intelligence is currently supporting, you'll find that the results are, while sometimes quite surprising, not all that useful. When you try and get an artificial intelligence system to produce a business plan for you, or create an app for you, or produce an advertising graphic for you, very often you have to put as much work into getting the system to produce something for you as you would to produce what it is that you want yourself.
But, while I think that generative artificial intelligence has a long way to go before they really get to the point of fulfilling an awful lot of the promises that are being made about them, the fact that an awful lot of people believe in the promises is having an impact on you. It means that the companies running the technology that runs your lives are, increasingly, integrating generative artificial intelligence tools in every possible process and product that they run or provide. This means that, even if you, yourself, don't want to interact with artificial intelligence, and don't want your products to rely on artificial intelligence, and don't really want to be involved in artificial intelligence in any way, you have less and less choice in the matter. The big guys with the big money are buying into artificial intelligence as fast as they can, and this is bound to have an effect on you.
One of the effects could be financial. So much money is being invested in artificial intelligence companies, and research, and products, that it is affecting stock markets and corporate capitalization. If the promise of generative artificial intelligence isn't fulfilled, soon, that effect on the stock market, which is currently financially positive, is going to burst. This is known as a stock market bubble, and bubbles burst. It may be that generative artificial intelligence can improve fast enough that the stock markets will accept the growth, regardless of how slow it is, and keep on supporting the capitalization of these companies. But bubbles are unstable. And, if they burst, with the current capitalization of these artificial intelligence related companies, and the pressures on financial the negative pressures on financial markets then exists from a variety of other factors in our world, it could have a very significant impact on your finances. Possibly on your job, possibly on your retirement plan, if the plan has invested heavily in artificial intelligence companies. This isn't a guarantee, of course: absolutely nothing in the stock market is ever guaranteed. But it is something to think about and pay attention to.
As with anything to do with the global economy, the effects are complex and the outcomes uncertain. Possibly the massive overinvestment in AI companies is diverting money better spent elsewhere. Possibly the massive investment if propping up stock markets in a situation where other pressures might be making it tank. And possibly the research into genAI will actually result in valuable discoveries in other fields. But dangers are there as well.
There are other effects of the current frenzy for artificial intelligence. As I say, artificial intelligence tools are being Incorporated in all kinds of computer processes, and computers, as I said right at the beginning, run your world. This is why I am writing this series of postings and articles. I am trying to ensure that those of you who do take an interest, can get some information about what generative artificial intelligence really is, and isn't, what it can do for you, and what dangers it holds for you, as well.
There is a meme going around the Internet that shows a still frame from the now very old movie, "2001: A Space Odyssey." The meme notes that the movie is very prescient, given that it shows people, eating prepared and reheated meals, sitting at tables, but, even though they are sitting next to each other, not interacting with each other, but rather working, or interacting with conversations on flat rectangular portable screens. The meme also goes on to say that, shortly after this scene takes place, the artificially intelligent computer goes crazy, and kills everyone.
That isn't the only danger with artificial intelligence, and it's not even the most likely danger involving artificial intelligence. But there are dangers, real dangers, that come with using artificial intelligence. It's a good idea to know what artificial intelligence is, how it works, and what the dangers are, if you are going to use artificial intelligence in the best way, and avoid the worst problems.
AI topic and series
Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2026/01/ai-000-intro-table-of-contents.html
Next: TBA
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