FOR thousand of years, our species has toiled to feed ourselves, building cities and civilisations along the way. 

We aspired to a time when heavy labour would no longer be needed to facilitate our destinies. Automated machines would run the planet and human development would have finally reached its ceiling. 

The introduction of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence software, has sparked debate about humanity’s future, with some viewing it as a threat to civilisation. Are we nearing the end of human history?

ChatGPT is, in short, a chat bot that can answer questions. It is online and freely accessible. It responds to text questions and can also perform tasks. The software is able to answer questions almost instantaneously by surveying the internet. When fed information, it is even able to write news articles, research papers, song lyrics in multiple genres, short stories, poems and musical pieces in a way that is completely indistinguishable from human effort.

An OpenAI initiative, the bot was trained by research scientists and exposed to great swathes of data sets. The software was taught to predict sequences wherein when appropriately prompted, it is able to synthesise large quantities of information, draw out key points and construct a precise, human-like response, excelling in accuracy. 

Many have pointed out the revolutionary nature of this technology. It simplifies and democratises information extraction. It’s swift, efficient and makes it that much easier for us to complete complex tasks.

However promising some may deem it to be, the potential of this technology to advance its abilities causes great anxiety in others. It is speculated that the technology could threaten the knowledge economy. 

Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate in economics, wrote in the New York Times recently that “AI and automation may be able to perform certain knowledge-based tasks more efficiently than humans, potentially reducing the need for some knowledge workers.”  This, some argue, would threaten the future of researchers, journalists, scientists, lawyers—all whose careers are premised upon problem-solving and content generation.

If the AI through continued exposure and learning develops an ingenuity that surpasses that of humans, it would be able to perform the tasks of knowledge workers with greater insight and efficiency, replacing the entire enterprise of human thought altogether. This would amount, in the eyes of many, to the automation of human consciousness. A software with capabilities equal to that of the human mind would usher in the end of human progress.

These speculations, however, are premature. The technology has a limited knowledge base, has made countless errors and lacks the technical and nuanced thinking of humans. its research scientists have pledged to mitigate the potential threats it poses to academia and various industries and it continues to be supervised.

For now, it is still up to us to realise our dreams and facilitate civilisation. – January 11, 2023.

* Pravin Periasamy reads The Malaysian Insight.