Even though cracks have been working on artificial intelligence for years, they suddenly panic and demand a moratorium.
It was enough to market ChatGPT, a state-of-the-art language developed by OpenAI, to shake the whole world. Are we rightly afraid of this conversational agent capable of answering any question, writing, translating and even having a conversation?
I asked two experts this question over the weekend, one from IT and the other from management. Not two of spades, but engineers with a master’s degree. Your explanations on artificial intelligence (which I will simply call AI like those who know it well, which is not my cup of tea) are far from reassuring me. One of them compares the situation to the beginning of the nuclear age. This time it’s not about material destruction, but about the danger that AI poses to democracy and our way of life.
Thousands of trades and professions are now at risk. Could AI write my columns? Sure, as long as I give it some rough outlines. Can AI compose music? Hey! yes, as long as we give it an orientation. Even better, the AI can paint Picassos, Dalis, and Riopelles at will. Paintings she would make from an analysis of the originals, without taking the slightest royalty away from those who painted them.
FUTURE UNEMPLOYED
Authors, composers, performers, painters and like many other artists thought they were immune to the possibility of losing their livelihood. Her creative spirit seemed to protect her. Mistake ! They are as threatened today as dozens of professions were during the industrial revolution.
The interpreters who dub films and series in a foreign language into French are on the brink of the abyss. There are more than a hundred of them in Montreal who make a living as voice actors. Replacing them with voices designed by AI is no longer a problem. It is even the infancy of art. With the AI, you can get as many Marc Labrèches as you want. And they will all be as imaginative as the original. A nice problem for the next president of the artists’ association!
AI INSTEAD OF LUC DIONNE?
Since the great success of District 31, which we owe to Luc Dionne, an author of rare productivity, there have been many detective series on television or those closely or distantly related to crime. Like series related to medicine or hospitals. Obviously replacing their authors with AI would be as easy as replacing notaries for wills and real estate transactions. It’s not me saying that, but the two experienced engineers I interviewed. For them there is no doubt that the AI can do the work of Luc Dionne!
Such a revolution may seem utopian to you, but it is within reach. The moratorium demanded by the main proponents of AI, including the illustrious Montrealer Yoshua Bengio and industrialists like Elon Musk, will not change that. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, it’s illusory to think that we can put its shoulders to the ground, even for just six months.
