Are you concerned about AI taking over the world?

Once ChatGPT hit the scene, along with hyper-realistic image generators, it seemed to the world that there was no limit to AI. Does this mean computers will take over most jobs or render thinking itself obsolete?

In a fascinating counter-point exercise, Greg Rosalsky from Planet Money on NPR listed several reasons why AI may be overrated. He starts off with a number of quick hits:

There are just so many reasons to believe AI is overrated. I could talk about the fact that productivity growth remains super disappointing. If AI were revolutionizing the economy, we would see it in the data. We’re not seeing it. I could talk about the fact that AI companies have yet to find a killer app and that perhaps the biggest application of AI could be, like, scams, misinformation and threatening democracy. I could talk about the ungodly amount of electricity it takes to power AI and how it’s raising serious concerns about its contribution to climate change. 

Rosalsky goes on to flush out three specific reasons to doubt that AI is all it’s cracked up to be. One reason is that despite its name artificial intelligence is not really that intelligent.

When you first use something like ChatGPT, it might seem like magic. Wow, a thinking machine able to answer questions or write or generate anything in an instant. But when you look under the hood, it’s more like a magic trick. These chatbots are a fancy way of aggregating the internet and then spitting out a mishmash of what it finds.

Later, Rosalsky points out a serious legal issue with AI that needs to be resolved before it can grow further.

It’s a copycat. And perhaps the worst part of it is a good chunk of the stuff AI is copying is copyrighted, which is why there are at least 15 high-profile lawsuits against AI companies asserting copyright infringement.

To learn the other reasons by AI may be overrated, please read the rest of the article on the Planet Money website.