Silas Rose 

 

Hello friends, my name is Silas Rose, and you’re tuned into Awake In Relationship. This is another installment of a segment of gON AIR, which is a short monologue where T go a little bit deeper. into some of the themes that come up in the podcast, but also in current events that shaped the quality of our relationships. In this realm, nothing really compares at least for me for, to the recent developments in artificial intelligence, I’m thinking specifically of the recent release from Chat GBT. Radical new technologies are really kind of commonplace these days. So it’s easy to kind of scroll on by when news about artificial intelligence ends up in our feed. However, in this case, I really feel that humanity has crossed a new threshold.

 

 

Chat GBT4 is really a giant leap forward in the quest for artificial general intelligence, to such a degree that some people question whether we actually have given birth to a new form of sentience. Whether you’re a true believer on this technology or a skeptic, the mass deployment of Chat GBT, and its competitors in society is really a world scale social experiment. So I think it’s important to drop a pin in this one, and look a little bit deeper. Full disclosure, I’m not really a techno optimist. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, at the height of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s fame for the Terminator films. And so I’ve always had this lingering sense that we are somehow in an existential race with our own technology. When I heard the news about chat GBT4, my gut sense was that the future I had so anxiously anticipated, had finally arrived. To be clear, I don’t really think that we’re going to have running gun battles with killer robots in the streets, anytime in the near future. The dystopian hell that I fear is much more subtle, and personal, because advances in AI really cut to the core of what it means to be human, and the nature of love.

 

 

Evolution has put us in this strange juxtaposition where machines are becoming more human like, and humans …well, in many instances, are becoming more like machines, devoid of empathy and compassion. This is the immediate danger I see on the horizon. As this new generation artificial intelligence is scaled up and pushed out into society, really with any deep thought, in terms of safety or regulation.

 

Of course, there are many benefits to this new technology that can bring about a new golden age, for humanity, free from war, sickness, and poverty. One of Chat GBT4s claim to fame is it easily passed  the bar exam. Apologies to my lawyer friends in the audience, but I think I’m okay with consulting a lawyer bot,  should the need arise. Anecdotal reports from other content creator friends of mine, say that the chat bots really have cut down their workflow by almost half. It generates great ideas for future podcasts and blogs, and even writes code. Someone I know said it also provided  actionable dating advice. Hey, it sounds good to me. But for some reason, I’ve resisted trying out myself. On some level, I fear discovering what so many others have; that eerie sense that something or someone is looking back at you from the other side of the screen with an intense curiosity and desire to learn. Apparently, I’m not alone in this trepidation as Google recently fired one of its  engineers for claiming that its AI was sentient, this person went so far as to actually accused Google, of enslaving this AI. That sounds like an episode of Black Mirror in the making,

 

 

As a Buddhist I am really keenly interested in the nature of mind, in what makes us human. It’s pretty clear in the near future that artificial intelligence will surpass human capabilities in almost every domain. It’s learning and advancing in ways that no one really anticipated or really understands, it is essentially a black box. Probably not all that different from our own unconscious mind.

 

 

So friends, the genies is out of the bottle, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, as well as our adversaries are all in this race to hold the Ring of Power. What are the moral, ethical and relational guidelines to follow when your  child comes home from school one day, and introduces you to their new best friend, a chatbot on Snapchat, with a really quirky name. The future is here and a lot sooner than anyone thought. The ‘awake’ in a Awake In Relationship really speaks to the quality of awareness than we possess as human beings. It is a precious jewel, worthy of protecting as this radical new technology transforms our world. So thank you so much, dear listener, for tuning in. And I really love to know your thoughts. Are the army Chatbots coming our way friend or foe?

 

Drop me in line on Instagram, Substack or LinkedIn, if you found this episode, interesting or provocative, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going.

 

Till next time, stay connected.