By Frank Giles
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been around and in our collective conscious for a long time. The Steven Spielberg-directed movie by the same name is more than 20 years old. But, not until recently, has the talk of AI’s potential and dangers really ramped up.
(Photo courtesy of UF/IFAS)
You may have played around with ChatGPT (chat.openai.com), which is a large language model version of AI. I have used the chat bot, and some of its results are very impressive. Others not so much. But every day the computer system is learning and growing “smarter.” The company that created ChatGPT already has released version 4.0, and it is accomplishing some amazing feats.
There’s been a ton of hype surrounding AI, some of which seems fantastical and hard to believe. But when you have someone who helped transform the technological world like Bill Gates say it’s the real deal, we’d better take notice.
“In my lifetime, I’ve seen two demonstrations of technology that struck me as revolutionary. The first time was in 1980, when I was introduced to a graphical user interface — the forerunner of every modern (computer) operating system, including Windows,” Gates said in a blog post in March. “The second big surprise came just last year. I’d been meeting with the team from OpenAI since 2016 and was impressed by their steady progress. In mid-2022, I was so excited about their work that I gave them a challenge: train an artificial intelligence to pass an advanced placement biology exam … I picked AP bio because the test is more than a simple regurgitation of scientific facts — it asks you to think critically about biology. If you can do that, I said, then you’ll have made a true breakthrough. I thought the challenge would keep them busy for two or three years. They finished it in just a few months.”
AI technology is advancing so quickly that it has some notable people concerned, including Elon Musk, who joined more than 1,000 other prominent tech leaders in calling for a six-month pause in AI development. And the so-called Godfather of AI, Geoffrey Hinton, recently resigned his executive post at Google over concerns about the technology.
CREATIVE DESTRUCTION
I am doubtful a pause in AI will occur in any organized fashion. The technology is readily available in computer networks. Even if we did pause, bad actors who might use AI for ill purposes would not. I think our best and probably only path forward is cautious exploration of the good AI can bring us.
History is full of stories of creative destruction delivered by new technologies. As those technologies came into mainstream usage, there were those who said it was going to be the end of the world as we know it. Often that was true, but it was a better world enabled by technology.
Back in the 1800s, whale oil was the go-to source for lamps and soaps. There was angst when kerosene started to replace the oil, but it turned out to be more efficient. And I am pretty sure the whales were happy with the transition.
APPLICATIONS IN AG
AI is being deployed in all sorts of agricultural applications already. It’s in commercial products and is being used to advance research more quickly. The University of Florida (UF) has embraced AI. The school has one of the most powerful supercomputers — the HiPerGator — in the academic world. It is being used in agricultural AI research.
I saw one example of this during a recent visit to the UF Gainesville campus. Blueberry plant breeders are using the computer and AI to develop new and better varieties. It’s a lot to explain in this space, but let’s just say the HiPerGator is very powerful, and I am sure it will help build a better blueberry in the future. Along with human help, of course.
So, what’s your take on AI? Good, bad or indifferent? The jury is still out for me, somewhere between excitement and worry about some form of Terminator-style rise of the machines. But I lean more toward the positive outcome. Like all technologies, it won’t likely be stopped or even slowed, so we humans need to be active in guiding it in the right direction.