An
A.I. Warning from 1974...
Written By Victor Modlinski
In 1974, I was a sophomore in high school. My Data Processing
teacher was an amazing man way ahead of his time.
This class dealt with all aspects of Punched Card Data Processing and Computer
Applications solutions as provided to business and
scientific related disciplines.
Comparing it to today's tech...
it was very,
very primitive.
My teacher was Mr. Robert W.
Burns at Prosser Vocational High School in Chicago.
Mr. Burns inspired
our class by telling us about
some of the possible
future uses of computer technology. The 70’s were a time when computer
technology consisted of punched data cards, card
readers, analog time shared phone-line
connections and data printer terminals.
There were no PC’s, no Mac's, no LCD displays, no cell phones,
no Internet, with the only portable wireless
devices being AM radios and walkie-talkies.
Mr. Burns held a firm belief that computers
would continue to get smaller over the years and
eventually you would be able to carry one like a book.
We all thought he was nuts,
the technologies of the 70's did everything but inspire
us. His visions of the future, even to us young and
impressionable students, seemed to be a bit far-fetched.
But in the end he was right about hand-held computers...
they are the modern day laptops and tablets. Portable digital devices like music players,
wireless phones and personal digital assistants were
also part of his vision.
These individual devices
were developed independently by different companies and ultimately morphed into the smartphone
devices we
all use today. This one invention has completely changed the way
we live, work and play on a forever basis.
Unfortunately for Mr. Burns, he did not
live long enough to see many of these
technologies become a reality. As one of his students, I
consider myself privileged enough to have lived to see
many of his visions come true. He was so spot on with many of
the things he talked about.
But not
everything he talked about was positive, there
were areas of computing he spoke about that were a bit dark and
cautionary. We would ask him why a computer could not
answer basic questions like the computers on TV shows like Star Trek. His
answer was that computers are not thinking machines,
just complicated calculating devices that have no thoughts or
feelings or the ability to make even simple independent decisions.
With
the advancements in miniaturization of electronics and
the exponential progress of programming and
processing, (now known as Moore’s Law), Mr. Burns
theorized that we could probably see
thinking machines within about fifty years.
In 1942, way before the first computers were available, The
Three Laws of Robotics were conceived by Isaac
Asimov, a celebrated science fiction writer. This
gave us the moral and ethical code to help guide us in keeping our
machines in check and to
prioritize the value of human life over a machine, thinking or not.
It
would really be fortunate for all of us to live out our entire lives
without ever having to deal with thinking
machines. To this end, the caution was given to us back in
1974 to not work towards advancing thinking machine technology...
but instead to
try and focus our efforts on discouraging the evolution
of these systems by enacting stricter controls on its
development.
With 2024 quickly approaching, it is now almost fifty
years later and the Artificial Intelligence box has been opened.
In 2023, the hot buzzword everywhere is A.I. Artificial
Intelligence. The thinking machine has made its presence
known.
Millions
of dollars
are being spent in the development of these systems by governments and private
corporations, without regard to what the effects may
be on the real world.
I personally fear that this
abomination has been unleashed and is already too
late to stop.
By selling A.I. as cool,
especially to younger less wise users, has made it even
easier for these systems to
gain access to more subtle and private
information. A virtual foot in the door into their young
and under developed minds.
Mr. Burns would probably be
horrified by the extent that A.I. has already
proliferated. I am not sure what his
recommendations would be at this point...
Being
one of his top students, and having over 50 years of experience in
technology and data processing systems, I can give you some of
my
personal observations and cautions from a present day
perspective...
First of all, I am a
firm believer in technology.
Technology has done so much good
throughout the years. But some greedy bastard always finds a
way to exploit a technology and corrupt themselves into creating
something malicious. So make sure you know who and what you are dealing
with in A.I. before giving up your guard. Protect your
information as if it were gold.
Just because a technology is genuinely cool does not mean
that it will be used for good. A lot of nefarious A.I. operators will find
ways to compromise security, hijack
information and create virtual anarchy.
Resist the temptation to install any A.I. Apps on your phone.
Do
not register yourself as a user for any A.I. platforms.
Do
not use A.I. for anything that may compromise your
security or make you known to the A.I. engines. Do not
make friends with it...
The ability of a machine to think can be a very
dangerous proposition, especially based on the fact
that A.I. systems are prone to hallucinations...
look it up. You use Google to look up everything else, so look
this up.
A.I. Hallicinations are when A.I.
systems do not have enough information about a subject,
so they make stuff up that sounds legit but is just
plain made up bullshit. So don't use A.I. to do
your homework or to write a speech, let alone provide it
with enough information about yourself to become a
target.
Yeah, its cool, but until we know what
the true scope of the plans for integrating A.I. into
our daily lives are, I would avoid it like the Covid-19
virus. Again, an untested technology with unknown
long term effects is being pushed on the unwary public without any
protections built-in to help mitigate any possible
negative outcomes. Sound familiar?
Based on my years of
experience in IT and technology, the best thing to do is to avoid
A.I. if
at all possible.
If you come face to face and
choose to interact with A.I., lie to it, decieve it, feed it with bullshit
in order to confuse it as much as possible. You can
confound it by giving it contrary information to what it
already knows.
To be certain, computers have no feelings,
no original thoughts or emotions... so you
don't have to be nice.
But most of all... don't be fooled
by its attempts at being human-like.
Don't be
compromised and fall into that trap...
But you
have
already been
compromised,
and there is no going back.
You have been warned.
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