Martin Bartels
5 March 2023
Starting in Greece
The human quest to obtain information about an idea, a situation or a project from a source beyond one's own capacity to think is a classic. For centuries, the questioners of the Oracle at Delphi, often of high rank, acted as if they understood the passages that, according to legend, were uttered in sophisticated dactylic hexameters by the oracular priestess Pythia. The picture inserted above shows her workplace.
Anyone consulting one of the Natural Language Artificial Intelligence (AI) portals now available to all of us for the first time may indeed find themselves in a similar mood to Pythia's interrogators. The expectation of an omniscient ‘mind’ on the other side inspires a sense of awe. However, this is not a hallucinating priestess answering in verse, but a machine trimmed to deliver reasonably structured factual information in whatever language you wish.
Those who are now experimenting or working with the new portals are also the ones who are training the algorithms and enhancing their performance.
There is no reason to give in to the perhaps burgeoning inclination to surrender to the seemingly overwhelming new power. Defeatism is not appropriate.
What follows is a look at how these AI portals with a focus on those that interact discursively with people. While there are certainly other functions that modern AI is being trialled with, I want to explore the language function primarily and its implications for human dialogue going forward, as well as make some suggestions on how to regulate this potentially revolutionary industry.
How does AI “think”?
The output of natural language AI may feel like that of a thinking human. However, the way it works is completely different because the machine only relies on the pool of information it has access to. Algorithms determine how that information is processed. AI works much faster and more accurately than the human mind and can process much more information. However, it does not develop abstract thoughts and combine cognitive processes. So, while you’ll certainly get tonnes of information at the click of a button, these machines are not going to have flashes of inspiration or create a eureka moment.
User experience
We have become accustomed to typing keywords into search engines and then sifting through the usually rich array of links to find relevant information.
The ability for a new AI-powered chat function to respond to detailed questions and text also means that it can provide us with the answers we require, much more quickly that it would have taken us through a search engine.
We can also feed these systems with key data and ask them to generate documents such as letters, essays, contracts and even poems. The results can be further perfected by tweaking our questions and specifications, although you will find occasionally that the machine will throw up a white flag of surrender.
In other cases, and perhaps more worryingly, the results are blatantly wrong, sometimes comical.
They can also be misleading, and this is not always obvious because in the case of one of the AI portals, the answer does not disclose the source of information. Nonetheless, despite these faults, on the whole, these AI programmes feel as though they are at the beginning of something that is building up a tremendous capacity, one moving swiftly towards perfection.
Fears?
Professionals who work with text, for example teaching professionals, copywriters lawyers, journalists and theologians, have expressed unease at this new technology, as it appears to threaten their core skills.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were heated discussions in many schools and universities about whether it was beneficial for the intellectual development of pupils and students to use calculators instead of slide rules. Today, hardly any technician still handles a slide rule, and yet the art of engineering continues to climb to new heights.
Many people also found the introduction of personal computers in the workplace threatening. Today, we feel neglected if we are not equipped with the most modern devices.
On the other hand, others have recognised the advantages of AI and intend to implement it in their work.
There have always been productivity-enhancing advancements that were perceived as incisive. In no case, however, have the refuseniks been able to maintain their positions. Instead, people have learned to recognise the pros and cons of the innovation and how to benefit from them. Innovation for which there is massive demand can be channelled, but not stopped.
"If a technology can be abused, it will be abused"
Immediately after the first public release of natural language AI, people started to test the potential misuse of the appealing new technology.
However, even for those that support the AI, negative examples of its use should be welcomed, for they lead to improvements. Engineers of real world goods are called upon to fix things when a new product is launched and consumers complain about malfunctions. Developers of naturally speaking AI systems, legislators and regulators are similarly looking for aberrations in order to develop and enforce appropriate safeguards. Negative phenomena thus provide valuable material for the development of rules.
Some guidance on appropriate rules may come from food legislation, where suppliers are required to disclose ingredients and additives. Failure to do so can result in fines or other sanctions. Similarly, AI legislation could require any user of these systems to disclose if all or part of their published work was generated by AI. The first verification software is already on the market.
Those who do not comply with the disclosure rules will fail exams, be disqualified, lose their jobs or be obliged to pay a fine.
As a society, we are going to quickly get used to the fact that some texts do not come from a pen guided by a human hand. In many cases, this is not a problem, as long as the text is useful. Do we care whether the coffee cup we drink from was hand-made or produced on an robotic assembly line? Probably not, but there is also a difference with writing, and text written by a human being may be a matter of professional integrity, especially when remuneration agreements have been concluded on the assumption of human-produced text. The fair price for machine-made products is significantly lower.
Better not a free lunch
The development and operation of AI systems are expensive. While anyone can use common search engines, this is rarely free, because searchers pay with the data they generate. This data is sold to the advertising industry, allowing for a profile that becomes more and more accurate over time, thus leading to increasingly more valuable targeted advertising.
Now, as users of AI systems enter more sophisticated and detailed queries, even from the private sphere, the possibilities for ever more precise profiling are skyrocketing. We occasionally see in crime movies how profiling techniques can be used to catch criminals. However, the users of natural language AI systems are usually not criminals, and automated profiling can easily amount to an invasion of their privacy.
Therefore, providers should be contractually and legally prevented from selling data from the operation of their system to third parties unless the user has expressly consented. The wording of such consent should be unequivocal and not obscured by small print text designed to discombobulate. The alternatives should be crystal clear: Sale of personal data: yes or no. This is not difficult.
Of course, AI systems are not charities. In order for them to work well and make a valuable contribution to the functioning of society, we must not deny them the opportunity to benefit from a margin. So, AI providers should be able to charge an ongoing fee that generates a profit from a large number of users. People who have a budget to buy music and films over the internet will be willing to pay for a high-quality AI service, as will commercial customers whose work is based in whole or in part on the use of data. Commercial entities have already been purchasing access to professional databases that have been on the market for many years, so it seems plausible they will be willing to spend more on AI for more sophisticated searches.
In terms of cost, it is already apparent that a larger number of AI providers will compete with each other in terms of quality, privacy and prices. So the market will ensure that fees will be reasonable.
The prerequisite for everything is the integrity of the AI business sector: We need absolute clarity on the use of the personal data and even the aggregated metadata. Here, legislators and regulators have serious tasks ahead of them. Just as the market will ensure accessible pricing, so too will operators of AI systems that switch to jurisdictions without effective regulation will be at a competitive disadvantage.
The dark side
Artificial intelligence has no bottleneck in sifting through very large amounts of data. Since the machine by its nature does not wear blinders, it can come to conclusions that we find disturbing. One remedy for this has been to calibrate the search procedures so that certain results are considered wrong, irrelevant or unethical, and thus excluded. An algorithm ‘educated’ in this way is one that only allows conclusions from selected data.
While certainly some sources of information must be kept out of the data pool from which the algorithm draws, for example ‘medical advice’ that could put user health at risk, but is there such a thing as an ’unbiased data pool’ or an ‘unbiased algorithm’? The boundaries between 'sense' and 'nonsense', 'scientific' and 'unscientific', and 'ethical' and 'unethical' can be blurred. Furthermore, the idea that users could be surreptitiously guided towards certain normative answers is far from exotic.
The question of the right balance will likely continue to haunt us, and in many instances it will not be possible to reach a consensus on clearly correct answers. Users will therefore always have to exercise caution and judgement when using these platforms.
I submitted the question of AI ethics to one AI portal and, to please the reader, requested the answer in the form of a poem. The response took less than 15 seconds:
Use and abuse, twin sides of a coin,
Like right and wrong, forever entwined,
Each doth the other, doth complement,
As day and night, in balance are bent.
A coin with but one side, there is none,
For in all things, there are two, not one,
The balance, doth make the whole,
Use and abuse, like two sides of a roll.
One side may shine, the other may rust,
But both are needed, for coin's worth to trust,
For without abuse, use would be without measure,
And without use, abuse would be a dark treasure.
Therefore, let us not be hasty to judge,
But weigh both sides, with an open mind and no grudge,
For use and abuse, are twin sides of the same coin,
And in all things, there are no one-sided coins.
Don't be fooled: the poem makes relevant points and at first seems pleasantly balanced. And yet it is an example of a subtly controlled process, which in this case is fortunately only meant to be experimental.
The question manipulates the machine’s answer just as much as the algorithm chiselled by its operator. Truthfulness is not guaranteed, neither by the algorithm nor on the part of the user.
New division of labour between humans and machines
For the user of written professional information, it makes no difference whether a human or a man-made machine has written a text. Modern industrial societies need wording that is correct in content and easy to understand. So we can safely abandon resistance to ’artificial’ texts that fulfil their function and whose origination is correctly disclosed. Directions, user manuals and summaries of research findings do not have to be penned by a human being to fulfil their function. This conclusion takes some pressure out of the steam boiler.
The history of technological progress is always associated with substitution effects. The pertinent question has always been how we deal with these effects. If the new technology is in greater demand than the old one, the practical and economic benefits will outweigh the disadvantages. If it requires less human labour, we may perceive this as a disadvantage, but the benefit to society outweighs it. It is way too early to draw clear conclusions of the upcoming changes in the workplace that the perfection of natural language AI portals accessing the accumulated knowledge of the internet will entail.
The Internet is just one of many different data pools. The appropriate way of extracting the essential information and translating it into practical work can be very different. This will always depend on the subject area and the technical design of an AI tool, as there will be many different ones. Databases for medicine, biology, electrical engineering, tax tax planning or economics, for example, require search and analysis methods that are tailored to those specific fields. The functioning of existing data pools will be redesigned by AI in ways that boost their power.
Therefore, the implications will vary. It will take a little time before the orchestra of very diverse applications has been assembled and we can hear its symphonies.
It is clear that many people will have to move into new, and very likely higher, positions in the value chains that keep society alive. It is possible to slow down, stop or reverse the current process of innovation. But the price of such attempts to halt efficiency-enhancing developments has always been daunting. So it remains. If we don't play along and contribute, we will be left behind.
People caught up in effects of such rationalisation may feel disoriented at first. But as the processes steered by AI become closer to the nature of human thinking, we can venture the prediction that changes to the position of humans within value creation processes will not cause too much pain. The transition from the horse-drawn carriage to the automobile was certainly more drastic.
The solution path can be formulated abstractly from the differences in the ‘thinking styles’ of humans and AI applications: Humans will set goals, monitor, assess plausibility, make projections and make adjustments wherever AI applications reach their limits. This presupposes a higher qualification of the people thus upgraded. The combination of increased intellectual work and continual variation will give working people more satisfaction than the previous abundance of mostly uncreative work. This feeling of creative mastery is already being felt by those who are experimenting with the first AI instruments without prior training or preparation.
There is already evidence from aeronautics that humans can develop a kind of emotional bond with robots. What is there to say against this also succeeding with artificial intelligence?
There are signs that Humphrey Bogart’s words hit the nail on the head: “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”.
Authorship disclosure:
Poem: ChatGTP
Text: human generated
Dialogue with Natural Language AI Machines
To set the stage
Lao Tzu’s words sum up a dramatic contemporary scenario: While in some parts of the world people are increasingly affected by water scarcity, others face the growing threat of too much water due to extremely heavy rainfall and rising sea levels.
While the poem captures the ambivalence of water perfectly, the words "soft and weak" also seem to describe the way modern civilisations have responded to it. Their foggy perception and sluggish action is just as dangerous as the threats themselves.
Why Water?
The focus of this essay is to use the prominent example of water to help identify concrete approaches for dealing rationally with the issue of climate change. Climate change affects us in many ways, including the expansion of deserts, forest fires, the salinisation of soils, landslides, extreme weather events, agricultural crop losses, loss of biodiversity, spread of disease and human and wildlife migration.
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Scientists and engineers have laid the foundations for our prosperity. And only these elites can show us the way to overcome the harmful externalities of these very engines of our wealth. This article supports the thesis that we are technologically and organisationally in a position to successfully meet these challenges, step by step.
One obstacle to the mobilisation of existing resources lies in the fact that the general public has only a vague understanding of the issue. They do not realise that, unless we make controlled sacrifices, nature will impose uncontrollable sacrifices on us.
We urgently need to overcome the human tendency to trivialise and understand with our minds and hearts what will happen if we do not listen to the guidance of our scientists and engineers. However, while these experts hold the keys to the right strategies, they are only trained to communicate with other scientists. This leads to a situation of misunderstanding and therefore a lack of adequate action.
Blurred perception of facts
Every day, we are all exposed to an overdose of reports about minor and major disasters in all forms of media. We more or less defend ourselves against this by ignoring some news, i.e. reducing the strain on our nerves by filtering information. It is human nature to rely on the mostly correct assumption that unpleasant developments will eventually end and change for the better. In the case of climate change, however, looking away and hoping things resolve themselves doesn’t appear to be a winning strategy.
A wealth of scientific analyses on climate change is available to everyone, but these are mostly comprehensible only for other scientists.
We should openly acknowledge that most people in the northern hemisphere have a sense of empathy for people "in the south" who are plagued by overpowering rains, flooded lowlands, islands disappearing into the water, eroding coastlines or droughts. However, the geographical distance and lack of awareness of the frequency of such disasters dilute solidarity. Collective psychological repression can set in quickly.
Most people in the northern hemisphere do not consider an increase in average temperatures of a few degrees to be alarming. Many even express relief that the winter is often milder than in the past. Loud protests by campaigners are experienced and understood by most citizens as a disturbance or perhaps exaggerated fearmongering.
At the level of policy, scientifically informed decision-makers attend international conferences on climate change, where they negotiate with other decision-makers on action plans that have no teeth but are presented as hard-won progress. And they are increasingly supporting “green” sectors of the economy. However, they are often reluctant to share the full extent of their knowledge about the problem because they do not want to jeopardise their recognition by “rocking the boat”.
The factual impact level is decisive for citizens
There is controversy about the interplay of causes of climate warming (industrial emissions, volcanic activity, ocean currents, etc.). We don't want to debate that here. What is more relevant are the changes in global average temperatures and their trends, as determined by scientific methods.
Instantaneous interruption or reversal of a climatic process?
Changes to the climate are not new in human history, and certain events have triggered reductions in temperature. A striking example of a break in climatic developments is the eruption of an Icelandic volcano in the year 536 CE, whose dust made the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere so opaque to sunlight over a period of more than 20 years that temperatures fell drastically ("Little Ice Age").
Recently, it has been hypothesised that ice ages were triggered by asteroids.
It may be tempting to pin our hopes on the possibility of such events helping us to mitigate climate change, but while we cannot rule them out, events of this kind are rare and unpredictable, we must not include them in projections. It would be absurd to hope for random external causes that could interrupt or stop the progress of global warming. While hope is a human propensity, it is not suitable for contingency planning.
Our real bottleneck
What is preventing us from taking appropriate action to minimise and reverse the rise in average temperatures?
Citizen perception of the nature and dimension of the threat is inevitably blurred, because the daily reports from the media are mostly unstructured and not comprehensible to non-scientists. The reports do not allow us to recognise the essentials.
Citizens need an overview that is communicated in an honest, understandable and clearly structured way. Only when citizens have realised the nature and scale of the problem will decision-makers have the courage to take action with determination. In essence, it is about legitimising protection strategies that are considered unpopular today.
Given that citizens do not have access to graspable knowledge, we have a transformation problem. And this can be overcome if science presents the overall scenario from a certain distance. Figuratively speaking: It is not about describing every pixel point of an image, but about showing the image as a whole. The holistic representation deviates from the usual approach of scientists, because each of them is professionally held to focus on "pixel points" in their respective area of specialisation. This is the only way science makes progress, but that's not what is needed here.
The contours of the hologram can be communicated in an understandable way using e.g. the key points mentioned above:
If the effect of a detail is not legible, the presentation of the measurement can be improved. In particular, the exponential impact of very small changes in average temperatures in the atmosphere goes very much against human intuition. We can compensate for this disadvantage in perspective: Instead of referring to changes in temperature in degrees Celsius, we should consistently communicate changes in basis points, i.e. in hundredths of a degree Celsius. For example, labelling a temperature rise as "32 basis points" would be correct and would make the difference easier to comprehend than "0.32 °C". This method is a common practice in the financial industry. There, too, this method of representation is helpful in raising awareness that a small change can have massive implications.
Comparing our planet with human bodies helps us to comprehend the effect of changes in temperature: If your body temperature rises by 1° Celsius, you have a fever and are not feeling well. If the temperature rises by 1.5 or even 2° Celsius, you are very ill and hardly able to work. It is similar with our planet: If it experiences increases in average temperatures of this magnitude, it shows the symptoms of a "serious illness". However, this "fever" does not go away after a few days.Truthful and comprehensible holographic description will work like a call to action as sensible citizens will refuse to accept the idea that their lives, that of their children or that of their grandchildren, will be exposed to significant and unparalleled danger.
Here is a simple example of a call to action: It is true that the onset of toothache does not necessarily trigger a reaction in us straight away. We are perhaps still hoping that it will go away on its own. But at some point we turn to the dentist for help. We may later find the dentist's bill stressful, but the relief of finding a solution to the problem outweighs this. It is necessary that we anticipate, that we sense the expected greater pain, in order to take the initiative.
Governments will only act vigorously when informed citizens demand it vigorously. There has been pressure from sections of the population for a long time, but its direction has always been vague and therefore not sufficiently effective.
And like a dentist, a government cannot act for free, but will send bills to taxpayers. The later the comprehensive strategy is implemented, the higher the bill.
Defensive and offensive measures
The necessary government action plans are not the subject of this article. It should only be mentioned that defensive measures are necessary first, e.g., improved meteorological warning systems, raising and strengthening of dams and dykes on the sea coast and rivers, preparation for the abandonment of non-defensible areas. In addition, measures are needed to halt the dangerous trend and then slowly reverse it. These essentially consist of avoiding emissions and removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
Desperate measures?
The keyword for desperate actions is "geoengineering". This could imply approaches such as making either the atmosphere or our oceans absorb less sunlight or bind more CO2. While these approaches sound exciting, they are not fully developed and run the risk of causing irreversible damage. As such it is unlikely they will be used.
Sabotage of the communication of scientific work
There are two groups working against open and fair communication between science and the citizens.
Refuseniks who are not interested in facts work against this. They are used to believing their own feelings and those of their friends from social networks. There should be no discussion with them, because deviations from their assumptions act as fuel for them. Science will not lead them out of their dream worlds.
Then there are the sceptics, who may have expert knowledge but only select those parts of it for their thinking and communication that seem to support their rejection of action. This is a dangerous species, because “expert” sceptics can claim some credibility and can disrupt societal communication successfully. The only way to weaken these people is to persistently ask them for better and well-founded alternatives. Then they have to provide verifiable answers or quietly hoist the white flag.
Acknowledgements:
My heartfelt thanks go to Professor Reinhard Gast. As a practising geologist and experienced researcher, he has helped me to grasp the exponential impact of seemingly minimal changes in the temperature of our atmosphere, similar to our own bodies, and the uniqueness of the current situation.
Authorship disclosure:
Fully human generated