Artificial intelligence is continuing to become more and more embedded in our lives. Should we be scared?
Probably a little. But not to the point where we live in fear and avoid all technology, said Kevin Matsui on Wednesday night at the main branch of the Guelph Public Library.
Matsui is the managing director of the Centre for Advancing Responsible and Ethical Artificial Intelligence (CARE-AI) at the University of Guelph.
In his talk, he covered burning questions about AI – whether it will take people’s jobs, spread misinformation, and if it is generally something to be feared or embraced.
The event was the first part of the Friends of the Guelph Public Library Open Minds Fall Speaker series, which is free to the public.
While there are certainly things to be concerned about, he said, “it’s just like any other technology.”
In fact, most of us have likely been interacting with AI for longer than we think.
Streaming services like Spotify and Netflix, for example, utilize AI to create targeted recommendations. It’s also used in the sports industry for analyzing game footage and improving fan experience as well as player performance and safety.
The Moderna Vaccine even used AI in its development and testing. Drug development normally takes 10 years, but Moderna did it in a matter of weeks by using a design approach, utilizing data to make predictions.
Future drug development will heavily rely on artificial intelligence to accelerate development to combat things like antibiotic resistant pathogens, he said.
It can also help track biodiversity in insects, predict which type of soil you should grow a crop in, help analyze medical imaging, forecasting food prices, can personalize education and so much more.
Still, AI isn’t likely to replace jobs – at least not as many as you may think, and not right away.
While AI is becoming more prevalent in just about every workforce, physical jobs not heavily influenced by AI aren’t really at risk, for instance. This is because physical jobs that lack repetition, like welders, are unique to each situation.
Nurses might benefit from using AI to help ensure people are taking their medication at the right doses, or radiologists could benefit with AI assistance in interpreting scans, but those jobs still require the physical people and likely wouldn’t be replaced, he said.
Occupations most at-risk for being replaced would be data entry or text-related jobs with a greater degree of repetition. But Matsui said that likely won’t happen anytime soon.
So what are the concerns?
An increased difficulty in distinguishing what’s real and what’s not is one. One participant referenced a video that appeared real but turned out to be AI generated, spreading misinformation.
To that end he said to treat it just as any other scam, with caution, skepticism and fact-checking.
Another was how to prevent people passing off AI writing as their own.
While he said it will become increasingly hard to tell what has been developed by AI, universities are combatting this by changing the way they evaluate – requiring essay writing to take place in-person, for instance.
Many are also concerned about AI being used for nefarious purposes – a responsibility he said falls on the government.
“The legislation needs to catch up and really anticipate some of the future problems,” he said.
As AI takes the world by storm, he said all of a sudden everyone is an overnight expert, which is causing some misinformation to spread. When Boeing 737 max planes crashed in recent years while using autopilot, some blamed AI – but it was actually because of bad engineering and poor safety culture.
To fight misinformation, he said it’s important to distinguish what is and isn’t AI: a calculator, an automated vehicle, cruise control are not AI technology; they’re pre-programmed.
It’s also worth noting generative AI, like ChatGPT, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to AI as a whole, and is perhaps not as big of an industry as one may think.
“I’m suitably concerned, but not petrified yet,” he said.
