Artificially Intelligent
I hate Artificial Intelligence. The “Intelligence” part of the term AI is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the way people think about it. It’s more accurate to say that it is a predictive algorithm, but that isn’t as marketable. Human intelligence and consciousness are not well-defined subjects, but as far as we understand them, AI is not all intelligent in the same way we are. In fact, because AI has become such a large field, and a buzzword, it has been separated into three distinct categories:
Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI)
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI)
Artificial Narrow Intelligence, called weak AI, is any AI that has the ability to complete a specific task, such as generating text and images. This is every form of AI we currently have. AGI and ASI, called strong AI, are used to describe models that have the ability to display human behaviors, such as tone and emotion. The difference between ASI and AGI is that AGI would be on par with a human, while ASI would surpass human abilities. There are currently no forms of AGI or ASI.
The term AI actually refers to a suite of different technologies. When most people refer to AI, they usually mean Large Language Models (LLMs), which are predictive algorithms that produce text, images or code, when given a prompt. LLMs are the form of AI most people use, tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude.
Large Language Models are trained on data in a specific domain. After being trained, an LLM, given a prompt, will try and produce the best possible response. Training models takes a lot of compute power and storage, special facilities called AI data centers are built specifically for this purpose. Because of the resources required to train and run these models, and the industry’s push to use AI, there is currently a worldwide RAM shortage and a hard drive shortage. RAM prices have doubled during the last two years. Western Digital reported that it has sold out on hard drives for the next two years. The worst part about these pre-orders are that they are for anticipated growth, so in essence, these companies are hoarding resources.
The sheer scale of these data centers is also leaving a large impact on the environment and on communities. People living in these areas can expect more expensive utility bills, more environmental damage and louder noise pollution. You may be thinking that the cons will be outweighed by the fact that these data centers will create jobs and improve the economy. That would be a false premise. These data centers are self-operational, it is basically a large computer. Most of the jobs created are temporary construction jobs. After construction is completed, the only jobs remaining will maybe be a few administrative and security positions.
Of course, all this AI stuff must be useful to someone right? Well, it is unclear whether using Artificial Intelligence improves cognitive performance. It is still a very new technology. Ongoing studies are being conducted to observe how using AI affects the human brain. For example, a recent MIT preliminary study1 was conducted, in which three groups of participants were observed while writing an essay. One group of participants had access to an LLM for writing, the second group had access to a web search engine, and the third group had no access to any LLM or search engine, called the Brain-only group.
In the results, the LLM group produced more homogeneous essays, while the Brain-only group had a more varied writing style. Because of the limited time (20 minutes), the LLM group were more focused on copying and pasting the content, rather than incorporating their own original ideas. Additionally, people from the LLM group had a harder time quoting their own essay, which they had written just minutes before.
One of the biggest reasons I dislike AI is that it’s shoved down my throat everywhere I go. I don’t want AI YouTube videos, articles and animation. I want real art, made by a real human, with a real consciousness. It’s just annoying to find out the media I’m consuming was made using a 2 minute prompt. If AI continues to become more popular, I presume that human-made content will become a sort of novelty and will be valued that much more.