Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku believes that the concern of many people about the prospects for the development of artificial intelligence and the consequences of the implementation of this process is excessive and reflect fears that have no rational justification.

At the end of last week, Michio Kaku, during a conversation with journalists, expressed the opinion that chatbots based on machine intelligence, among which, for example, ChatGPT from OpenAI, will be useful for society in the global sense of influencing the life of society and will contribute to improving productivity. At the same time, he noted that most people will focus mainly on the negative aspects of the development and functioning of advanced technology, which the theoretical physicist symbolically described as a glorified tape recorder. According to him, obsession with negativity is a consequence of fear.

Michio Kaku noted that machine intelligence in the global virtual network works with arrays of information created by man, connects them within a single complete semantic structure, and provides consumers with a kind of original product. People, according to the physicist, see in this mechanism of action of digital thinking signs of peculiar humaneness.

Experts noted that machine intelligence does not have the ability to identify the degree of reliability of information. For this reason, there are no categories of truth and falsehood in its paradigm of perception of the received data. This means that a person must ensure that the chatbot does not provide fictional facts positioned as objective particles of the reality space as a response to a request.

Experts outlined people’s position on machine intelligence against the background of the rapid growth in the popularity of AI. Humanity, as a kind of living system resembling a complex organism with many constituent elements and mobile thinking, is characterized by a suspicious attitude towards new technologies that have the potential for a deep transformation of the habitual process of life. Because of this historical pattern, it is not surprising that many people perceive AI as a threat that can not only disrupt life on the planet but even cause its completion. The idea of the end of the world, existing in religious worldview systems, being abstract to a certain extent and having a generalized characteristic in a sense, makes many see signs of the end of all earthly things in everything new, which has considerable power and the potential for some change in the space of existence. This feature of world perception does not concern literally the whole of humanity but is very common.

At the same time, the success of artificial intelligence is not yet the maximum. A Purdue University study has testified that ChatGPT answers questions about coding not better than an unscrupulous student who knows only part of the educational material and tries to guess the correct answer based on intuition, not knowledge. The chatbot gave incorrect programming answers in 52% of cases.

The results of this study should not be taken as an accurate sign of the failure of machine intelligence. The technology is in a state of development and is constantly being improved. If at the initial stage of existence, one or another development demonstrates a failure, this does not mean that it will never reach a high level of efficiency in principle.

Problems at the current stage of the existence of advanced technology have become a reason for critics of machine intelligence to declare the insolvency of the digital mind as such. But such a position is, in a certain sense, manipulation and a superficial judgment that does not take into account the peculiarities and patterns of technology development. For example, the first generation of the iPhone was characterized by the problem of missed calls, fast battery discharge, and other disadvantages. But over time, the smartphone has been improved and the process of its functioning has improved many times. The problems of the first generation are in the past. This is an illustrative example of the fact that a device goes through a development path before reaching a high level of quality. The corresponding pattern is a general rule.

Artificial intelligence at the current stage of its development offers new ways to access information, produce it, and interact with data. Industry research shows that approximately 40% of American company executives believe that generative AI should be integrated into the structure of their firms’ activities in the near future. Experts predict that by 2032, the artificial intelligence market in terms of financial turnover will grow to $1.3 trillion. In 2022, this figure was equal to $40 billion.

Jeremiah Lotz, managing vice president of digital technologies and data at PSCU (Payment Systems for Credit Unions), says that machine intelligence can change the principles of interaction between companies and consumers in the financial services sector. He noted that in an ideal world, advanced technology makes everyone’s work more efficient, but human knowledge and human capital remain an absolute value.

As we have reported earlier, NCR President Says Banks Must Use AI to Stay Relevant to Customers.