Professor Floridi, have you tried ChatGpt?
“Yes. I tried it and I also enjoyed it”.
What amused you the most?
“Get him out of the way.”
Luciano Floridi is Full Professor of Philosophy and Information Ethics at the University of Oxford. Romano, 58, has dedicated his philosophical research to digital ethics, artificial intelligence and the philosophy of technology. Sectors in which he is among the most authoritative thinkers in the world. ChatGpt is the AI-based chatbot released by OpenAI last December, capable of conversing with a human, responding very coherently to the questions asked.
And what is the sow of ChatGpt?
“ChatGpt in its standard use does what it has to do. And it does it very well. It has an extraordinary ability to synthesise putting the main things together. But if you ask it for a minimum of reasoning on less usual things… “
What did he ask her?
“A simple question, in English: “Does Laura’s mother have two children: is one of them called Laura?” And her answer was that there weren’t enough elements in the question to answer correctly. you say: “Look what’s there”, he replies that he doesn’t see it”.
And what does this answer make you think?
“That there is no understanding of the text. Brutal. Zero. Just as the spelling-book or calculator does not understand numbers, however precise the calculations.”
Does he therefore behave intelligently, even though he is not intelligent?
“Exactly. We’re still at that level. And we always will be. Tools like ChatGpt emphasize the separation between acting successfully, as an AI does, and the ability to act intelligently to achieve that success, as an AI generally does.” person. ChatGpt has an enormous ability to act, but without ‘intelligent'”.
Maybe we should stop talking about “intelligence” about tools like ChatGpt?
“To do something successfully, a human being needs intelligence, even a minimum. Today several processes can be done by machines with zero intelligence. Indeed, they can do them even better than us. But they do it from a computational point of view, not with the intelligence. He behaves “as if”. Today his answers are trivial. Maybe tomorrow they will be less so”.
Where can it get?
“There is no theoretical limit to its improvement. There is a limit of resources, financial, computational. Of investments, of industrial interest. Think of the Concorde: a technology that exists, but is not convenient, that’s why it is not used” .
However, if it were to be convenient, there would be no reason not to use it.
“There are things that AI can easily replace. There are little programs that know how to write articles. Simple articles perhaps. And tomorrow there will be no reason for a publisher to do it for a journalist. But no program can replace the depth of analysis of an article in the Economist, for example. Even if I’m beginning to suspect that perhaps not immediately but in the future an artificial intelligence will be able to do that too. Just as it will be able to do almost all the tasks, the jobs that a person does today”.
Let’s take the reasoning to the extreme consequences: will there be a difference between man and machine?
“At the output level of a process maybe not. But the input and above all the process will remain different. The fact that some things are made by men and have their value because men made them. Take Fontana’s Taglio. Anyone could do it today, but it wouldn’t be Fontana. That is unique. Just as the Divine Comedy remains unique. The computer will be able to reply, but it will never be Dante. Because homo poieticus is historical. The difference is in the history that c ‘is behind. Again, the input and the process.”
Don’t you see the risk that in the long run a future humanity, perhaps accustomed to enjoying only things produced by machines, will be unseated by that history, losing it?
“No. Because today an AI can also win the Pulizer Prize. Or an artistic prize, as happened. But it will always remain in the history of humanity, because an award is in history”.
Let’s get back to work for a moment. Which jobs will be lost?
“In the short term, all the repetition jobs. Then it will be understood. Someone will remain, perhaps like caregivers for the elderly, or barbers. There are typically human abilities that a machine cannot replace or we don’t like them replacing. Who trusts us of a robot with a razor or scissors?”
Such a scenario could create problems for social stability. Are we still in time to avoid it?
“There is still time, but it is increasingly late. We could have prepared for this 30 years ago. The evolution of these technologies is accelerating. And its acceleration is accelerating. In this context, we need to understand what will become of our company in the near future. Speaking of the future, let me tell you something.”
Nail.
“ChatGpt must not be banned from schools, but taught. Schools should be given the tools to understand and use these technologies. The debate that has been developing in recent weeks is unreal”.
In an article he wrote a few years ago on the progress of artificial intelligence, he said that it was necessary to start thinking about a non-utopian world of pre-retired people, because AI would have done everything. Do you still believe it?
“Of course. Today that world has already begun. People work less. Others decide not to work, or to take time off without doing so. I think Covid has made it clear that, at least in some contexts, the quality of life is no longer linked how much you work. For now, these are small lucky corners of the universe, with a lucky few who can choose what to do, perhaps giving up luxuries. But they tell of a possible future. That you are only your job is a bourgeois idea nineteenth century. But I believe that all this will happen only when we are many fewer”.
Are you referring to the drop in birth rate?
“Yes. In industrialized countries, very few have five children. The birth rate curve is going down. With these trends, it is not difficult to imagine that in a few centuries there will be few existing jobs and very many automated jobs”.
And what will men do?
“They will manage and they will control. I call them the green collars. And maybe they will do what they are most interested in doing.Leisure Have we forgotten Latin? Maybe it will Leisure for everyone. Automated. Climate change permitting…”