SAN FRANCISCO: The rapid deployment of an increasingly “general” artificial intelligence (AI), endowed with human cognitive abilities and therefore likely to disrupt many professions, is seen as inevitable in Silicon Valley and is arousing a fascination that is overwhelming voices calling for to slow down the rhythm.
“If you combine the inventions of electricity, computers, the Internet and cell phones, what we’re going to see is still a long way off,” said Siqi Chen, a San Francisco-based entrepreneur.
“All these things were created by intelligence. But for the first time we are able to create intelligence ourselves,” he continues. “It’s a double-edged sword, but if it goes well, it can solve all problems (…), like global warming.”
Like many other tech players, Siqi Chen believes he is witnessing a historic paradigm shift.
Especially since OpenAI’s presentation on Tuesday of GPT-4, a new, even more powerful version of the natural language model that powers ChatGPT, the generative AI interface that has been used by millions of people for the past few months to write essays, poems or even Computer lines of code is used.
ChatGPT will be able to process not only text but also images and produce more complex content such as legal complaints or video games.
GPT-4 thus represents a step forward in the direction of so-called “general” artificial intelligence, i.e. programs “more intelligent than humans in general”, according to Sam Altman, the head of the Californian start-up.
“Confusing”
On Thursday, Microsoft, the main investor in OpenAI, promised that “soon we could not be without” generative AI-based assistants, capable of interacting with people in their language and performing all sorts of tasks. , from summarizing a meeting to creating a website or an advertising campaign.
These tools will free people “from the drudgery that stifles creativity” so they can reconnect with “the soul of their work,” said Jared Spataro, an IT group executive.
“I used GPT-4 to code 5 micro-functions for a new product. A (very good) developer wanted $6,000 and two weeks. GPT-4 did it in 3 hours for $0.11. Stunning,” tweeted Joe Perkins, a British entrepreneur.
Siqi Chen admits that new technology could one day replace him. But he relies on people’s adaptability, with solutions like universal income.
Beyond threatening the intellectual and artistic professions, general AI is causing insurmountable debates in society.
What remains authentic when the smallest photo on Instagram or the smallest opinion about a restaurant was created with or by an AI? What happens to learning when it is enough to formulate queries to machines? Who should make the decisions to define the algorithms?
“existential”
“General AI is coming faster than we can digest it,” notes Sharon Zhou, founder of a generative AI startup.
“This will pose existential questions to humanity. If it is more powerful and intelligent than us, are we exploiting it? Or is it exploiting us?” asks the former Stanford University researcher.
OpenAI claims to want to gradually build a general AI with the aim of benefiting all of humanity. It relies on the widespread use of its models to identify and fix problems.
But the company itself seems overwhelmed by the events.
Greg Brockman, one of the co-founders, admitted in an interview with The Information that ChatGPT is not as value neutral as they would have liked.
According to an interview with MIT Technology Review, Ilya Sutskever, the scientific director, “wants to find a way to slow the release rate of these models with unprecedented capabilities.”
And the start-up, whose name means “open AI,” has been criticized for a lack of transparency. The release of GPT-4 marks “its transformation from a not-for-profit research lab to a capitalist enterprise,” says Will Douglas Heaven, a researcher for that scholarly journal.
But despite the real and imagined criticisms, concerns and risks, the industry remains convinced that mainstream AI is unstoppable.
Because the race is on between companies, explains Sharon Zhou, but also between countries, especially the USA and China.
“The power is in the hands of those who know how to build all this,” she says. “And we can’t stop because we can’t afford to lose.”