AI Inventor Predicted ‘Perils’ of Computer Addiction

It’s only hi-tech make-believe.

More than 50 years ago, the man who invented the first “conversational” computer, now known as “Artificial Intelligence” or “AI,” predicted the dangers of users getting, as it were, addicted to the “superficial conversations” provided by computers (https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23617185/ai-chatbots-eliza-chatgpt-bing-sydney-artificial-intelligence-history?fbclid=IwAR2xHMA5SHuU9yyXrUnafdQC8vRWQ-HxUpedzKRNMwJmY42qc6aPvtjR7_I).

It seems the computer is only “parroting back what its users ask for.” Its interactions with users mimic human relationships without actually experiencing them. The more you use AI, the more it “learns” about you.

And somehow the users gradually grow more lonely, more loveless, more devoid of insight, than they were before.

All of this was apparent to the inventor of “ELIZA” in 1966. Now we’re in 2023… and all the problems with ELIZA are still there. Which doesn’t stop us from diving headfirst into AI as an infallible guide to living life.

Yo! A computer doesn’t KNOW anything! It doesn’t experience anything. It doesn’t feel anything. It only mimics humans–without anything we can call “understanding.” The more you put into it, the better it mimics human thoughts and feelings. It can string together a bunch of cliches into a love letter, a short story, or a political speech. All it can do is imitate life without being alive.

And while all this is going on, the AI is, in a way, “programming its users.” The machine imitates us, and we wind up imitating the machine.

I do wish God had made us wiser.