Prometheus’ gift

The two-year-old daughter of a caregiver I know greets people with “hi guys” and departs with “bye guys.”

These are common opening and closing remarks on Pinoy vlogs, some of which the girl has watched on her relatives’ cell phones.

The girl, whose earliest spoken words apart from “mama” included “mask” and “bad dog” (the household has several fur babies), already has basic skills for using a smartphone, such as putting the video of her current favorite pop song, Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers,” on play or pause.

This cyber-intuitive generation will likely embrace artificial intelligence as a natural part of life.

On the other hand, older generations, from boomers to Gen Z’s Class of 2023 now trying to enter the workforce, will feel the pain of transitioning to an AI-enabled global economy.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates, for example, is seeing the end of Google search and Amazon.

Industries are presenting a brave, positive picture, but many jobs are rapidly becoming redundant or obsolete, including some of those for which Batch 2023 trained or obtained their college degree.

A study conducted by digital tech giant Cisco estimates that at least 1.1 million jobs in the Philippines would disappear by 2028 as a result of AI.

Job losses are seen mostly in low-skilled work in agriculture, retail / wholesale and manufacturing that can be easily replaced by artificial intelligence.

New jobs, however, are also expected to be generated, although they will require upskilling. Whether those laid off can obtain such skills and regain employment and livelihoods is uncertain.

Jobs in the business process outsourcing industry are particularly vulnerable to displacements caused by AI. At worst, hundreds of thousands of BPO jobs may be lost forever.

However, at best, the disruptive impact of AI may speed up the transition of the country’s mostly voice-focused BPO sector to outsourced services with higher skills requirements.

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Discussions on an AI-enabled future have intensified in just the past few months after  OpenAI’s ChatGPT exploded on the scene in November last year.

ChatGPT made the tech sector attractive again in investment circles. But there has been a flood of stories featuring people whose jobs became redundant or who lost their livelihoods practically overnight as their employers or clients saw what ChatGPT can do.

The technology can compose speeches and essays, although for official or legal documents and journalistic output, humans are still needed to check for facts, biases, plagiarism and risks of drawing a lawsuit for libel or defamation. The internet, after all, is bursting with information along with disinformation and misinformation. Chatbots can facilitate the culling of false, inaccurate, distorted, slanted, malicious and downright evil materials from the internet.

AI technology is developing so rapidly and proving so disruptive, with regulation way behind, that over 1,100 people including Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak have signed an open letter calling for a six-month pause on the training of AI systems more powerful than OpenAI’s GPT-4.

Without sufficient regulation, the technology can “pose profound risks to society and humanity,” according to the signatories.

Francisco Ashley Acedillo, president of the Philippine Institute of Cybersecurity Professionals, notes that concerns about AI replacing humans have been raised as far back as the code-breaking days of Britain’s Alan Turing during World War II.

Computers dominating humanity – man versus machine (and man losing) – has been a recurring theme in science fiction even when computers still consisted of mainframes as large as houses. Remember HAL 9000 in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 sci fi epic “2001: A Space Odyssey”? The movie is on streaming services so even Gen Z might know.

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In art, creativity, talent and skills honed through thousands of hours of practice still separate man from machine. But you can detect AI-inspired riffs in a number of recent pop music hits, particularly those churned out by Korean bands.

The best products are those that use technology mainly to enhance genuine talent and creativity. Predecessors of AI-powered synth musical instruments – notably the analog Moog synthesizer launched way back in 1964 – were widely used by rock bands Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Pink Floyd.

It’s doubtful that AI-powered synth instruments can produce on their own ELP’s “From the Beginning” or the songs in Pink Floyd’s album “The Dark Side of the Moon.” But we’ve seen what AI-powered synth music has done for K-pop.

Low-level skills, however, can easily be replaced by AI. The Philippines’ army of household service workers could soon be returning to the country in droves as AI-enabled appliances are used for housework.

Like house lights and electronic gadgets, house bots can be controlled remotely through devices. Acedillo, however, warns that converting a house into a kind of smartphone also opens the home to hacking. AI-powered chatbots also enable malware development.

Acedillo presents two philosophical models in assessing the impact of AI. One is Pandora’s box, which unleashed chaos upon being opened. The other is Prometheus’ gift of fire to the world (but which he stole from Olympus, for which he was severely punished by Zeus). Fire has been a boon to humanity.

AI is an enabler; its benign applications can far outweigh its disruptive impacts. In looking at AI, Acedillo prefers the Prometheus model.

Rapid advances in science and technology have constantly blurred the lines between science fiction and reality. The tide of scientific progress can’t be rolled back. Humans inevitably embrace the advances and life evolves with the technology.