Commentary
ChatGPT and other aspects of artificial intelligence (AI) have created a lot of fear. Many dread, and have done so for years, that AI will steal millions of jobs and, worse, gain some sentience and take over, as the computer HAL did in the 1970’s film, “2001 Space Odyssey.” Neither the takeover nor mass unemployment is a realistic prospect. To be sure, jobs will be lost, but the effect will unfold more slowly than the fearmongers suggest, and if history is any guide, the changes will create as many new jobs as they destroy.
Before yielding to fears of an AI takeover, consider what else a computer would need to feel if it were to develop a lust for power. Human emotions do not come one at a time. To see a machine striving to take over, one would also need to imagine it having the package emotions that in people typically accompany such a desire, such as embarrassment, anger, frustration, or a sense of inadequacy. Anything is possible, of course, and a computer’s lust for power makes good Hollywood. The whole package of feelings is almost impossible to imagine….