Artificial intelligence has revolutionized the ways in which humanity can be connected to the digital world and it is in moments of great technological boom that we need to recall all concepts AI englobes.
The European Commission defines it, in order to establish guidelines and regulations for the use of artificial intelligence, as “systems that can, for a given set of objectives defined by humans, make autonomous decisions or actions that can also be programmed to learn or adapt their behavior based on their experience or their environment”. There exists a wide classification of AI regarding various criteria. Amongst them, Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) is known as the AI whose resolution focus is directed towards a specific type of problem, not looking to portray human intelligence entirely and it is of distinctive use on virtual assistants, facial recognition, spam filtering on email´s inbox and autonomous vehicles. Then, General Artificial Intelligence (AGI) represents human cognitive abilities, such as understanding and learning, generalized on software to find a solution to unknown tasks a human is capable of resolving. Lastly, the future of artificial intelligence, when AI not only replicates human abilities but exceeds them, is englobed on a category in constant development: Super Artificial Intelligence (ASI).
“The potential to use AI beneficially: less contamination, better medical attention, better opportunities, better education and other ways that allow citizens to be involved in society”, stated the Executive Vice President of the European Commission, Margrethe Vestager. The scope of great magnitude that this technology has is clearly observed and, in turn, the risks involved in its use are understood. What belongs to technology extends to what is human and vice versa, in such a way that the limits and borders between both spaces are blurred.
One of the ways in which this conflict is presented concerns generative language models. ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chat designed by OpenAI that has the ability to generate text indistinguishable from the one produced by a human mind. Although the program is incapable of presenting feelings or opinions, as humans do, it is built on a social database that feeds off of biased content. For example, a barrier is encountered by artificial intelligence when an accurate translation between gendered and genderless languages is seeked. Spanish, a language with gender, and Finnish, a language without gender, signify a conflict and a power of linguistic decision for the artificial intelligence responsible for translation in cases in which a unique interpretation must be achieved. It is then that the cognitive biases are reflected when executing the specified task, causing an erroneous translation. Is the spread of biased data inevitable?
Similarly, this conflict resurfaces in other aspects of design that transcend the human-computer interface. The idea of empathetic design, an approach to design that seeks to understand the emotional needs of the user to develop products and services that are functional and satisfying to the public, dates back years. Artificial intelligence proves to be of great help in the search for personalized experiences but deciding on a design that adapts to everyone and not just to what is received statistically remains a challenge.
It is frequently asked whether the advance and development of artificial intelligence aims to replicate not only human intelligence but also other qualities of human beings. Humanity is a concept of great magnitude, encompassing not only the factual capacity to think, reason, and ideate but also qualities such as empathy and the capacity to feel as we know it.
However, in addition to the values that distinguish us as individual human beings, there is a closely related social landscape contemplated in the concept of humanity. Humanity entails a collective synergy between different human beings, a cultural and social aspect that comes from the formation of communities and societies. Within these communities, the values of trust, belonging, and belief are defined, susceptible to the environment within which they are established. It is for each space and time that technology must face different perspectives and interpretations of said values. So, are the concepts redefined, questioned, or simply replicated by technology? Finally, the following question arises: Are human qualities unique, or could they be replicated by the breakdown of an analyzed behavioral pattern?
The concept of "technological singularity" remains relevant even if it is not a priority in society. The term refers to a hypothetical situation in the future in which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, thus signifying unpredictable changes for human civilization. At the moment, artificial intelligence has grown with such precision and efficiency that what is human and what is produced by artificial intelligence are, in certain cases, indistinguishable from one another. If you doubt the veracity of this statement, allow yourself to answer the following question: What guarantees that, for example, the very title of this subtopic is not the result of a human mind but of chatGPT?
