⭐ Lab Preparation

2024/25 Autumn Term

Author

The DS101A Team

Published

11 December 2024

🗺️ Context

AI, as a technology, came sharply to the public awareness when ChatGPT was publicly released on November 30th 2022. And the hype has only grown ever since. What kind of future will this technology, which is, in fact much older than ChatGPT and much more diverse than simply LLMs, bring about? How will it change our societies?

📖 Lab Preparation

In preparation for this week’s case study, on the future of AI, please take a look at the following articles and video footage:

Readings + Videos

Building Stochastic Parrots v.s Machines that Understand

Angie Wang (2023). “Is My Toddler a Stochastic Parrot?”. The New Yorker – (Wang 2023)
Emily M. Bender, Timnit Gebru, Angelina McMillan-Major, and Shmargaret Shmitchell (2021) .On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? 🦜. In Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT ’21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 610–623. – (Bender et al. 2021)
Ted Chiang (2023). ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web. The New Yorker – (Chiang 2023)
Anil Seth (2023). Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea. Nautilus – (Seth 2023)

⚖️ Regulations (to come)

Benj Edwards (2023). Biden issues sweeping executive order that touches AI risk, deepfakes, privacy. Ars Technica – (Edwards 2023)
Benj Edwards (2024). Trump plans to dismantle Biden AI safeguards after victory. Ars Technica – (Edwards 2024b)
Benj Edwards (2024). Trump allies want to “Make America First in AI” with sweeping executive order. Ars Technica – (Edwards 2024a)

Visions

Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter. Future of Life Institute. 2023. – (Yoshua Bengio et al. 2023)
🎥 Youtube video: Yejin Choi. Why AI Is Incredibly Smart and Shockingly Stupid. TED Talk.

Dystopia: right now

Mundane

🎥 Youtube video: Sasha Luccioni. AI Is Dangerous, but Not for the Reasons You Think. TED Talk.

🪖 Military

Simon Sharwood (2024). We can’t make this stuff up: Palantir, Anduril form fellowship for AI adventures. The Register. – (Sharwood 2024)
Benj Edwards (2024). Soon, the tech behind ChatGPT may help drone operators decide which enemies to kill. Ars Technica – (Edwards 2024c)

Dystopia: horizon

🎥 Youtube video: Mo Gawdat on AI: Will We End Up in Utopia or Dystopia?
🎥 Youtube video: ‘Godfather of AI’ on AI “exceeding human intelligence” and it “trying to take over”

Utopia: Medicine

AlphaFold2

🎥 Youtube video: Potential of AlphaFold
🎥 Youtube video: Winner of Nobel Prize in chemistry describes how his work could transform lives

References

Bender, Emily M., Timnit Gebru, Angelina McMillan-Major, and Shmargaret Shmitchell. 2021. “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? 🦜.” In, 610–23. Virtual Event Canada: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3442188.3445922.

Chiang, Ted. 2023. “ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web.” The New Yorker, February. https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/chatgpt-is-a-blurry-jpeg-of-the-web.

Edwards, Benj. 2023. “Biden Issues Sweeping Executive Order That Touches AI Risk, Deepfakes, Privacy.” Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/10/biden-ai-executive-order-requires-safety-testing-for-ai-that-poses-serious-risk/.

———. 2024a. “Trump Allies Want to ‘Make America First in AI’ with Sweeping Executive Order.” Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/07/trump-allies-want-to-make-america-first-in-ai-with-sweeping-executive-order/.

———. 2024b. “Trump Plans to Dismantle Biden AI Safeguards After Victory.” Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/11/trump-victory-signals-major-shakeup-for-us-ai-regulations/.

———. 2024c. “Soon, the Tech Behind ChatGPT May Help Drone Operators Decide Which Enemies to Kill.” Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/12/openai-and-anduril-team-up-to-build-ai-powered-drone-defense-systems/.

Seth, Anil. 2023. “Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea.” Nautilus. https://nautil.us/why-conscious-ai-is-a-bad-bad-idea-302937/.

Sharwood, Simon. 2024. “Palantir and Anduril Form Partnership, as Sauron Funded.” https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/09/palantir_anduril_alliance/.

Wang, Angie. 2023. “Is My Toddler a Stochastic Parrot?” The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/humor/sketchbook/is-my-toddler-a-stochastic-parrot.

Yoshua Bengio et al. 2023. “Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter.” Future of Life Institute. https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/.