Major figures in the world of artificial intelligence, including Elon Musk, published a forum this week in the form of a cry of alarm.
What are they telling us? That the explosion of artificial intelligence in recent months, and its penetration into our daily lives, as seen with conversational software like GPT4, is such that we need to take a break for a few months just to know roughly where we are.
Pause?
Because, tell us the signatories of this forum, the colonization of our societies by artificial intelligence might deeply dislocate them.
It also entails the risk of a growing confusion between true and false, to the point of disrupting all our mental landmarks. Artificial intelligence might manufacture an “artificial reality” tomorrow, which would replace ours without our realizing it.
It might also replace an incalculable number of workers in the professional world. We understand the legitimate panic of all those who would suddenly be declared useless.
It is explained that this machine will be able, and can even already, write honorable novels, suitable screenplays, pass very difficult entrance exams in the biggest schools.
Eventually, artificial intelligence might lead to the obsolescence of human beings, as if they were nothing more than obsolete technology in front of machines capable of mental operations infinitely superior to their own. As if the human being programmed his own disappearance, or at least, agreed himself to be no more than the dead wood of the history of progress.
Progress?
Is it really up to the oligarchs of new technologies to pilot the destinies of humanity from now on?
Will we really consent to this switch to transhumanism? Or is it not necessary to put democratic and ethical beacons on what might lead to alienation such as we have never seen in human history? But can we stop or even regulate such a technological advance? The question haunts us.
