In 2022 my team released an AI neural net plugin to our SurfControl email filter that was trained to detect possible inappropriate (nude) images in corporate emails. As an “applied” use of AI it was groundbreaking and exciting. As a product it was very good at detecting sand dunes and baby faces 👶. A neural net is the underlying technology that ChatGPT is built and attempts to copy how the brain works. Why was our neural net plugin inaccurate? It had 100s or 1000s of connections. GPT is rumoured to have a trillion and the human brain has 100 trillion connections. So the same plugin today could actually describe the picture in detail.
The AI of the decade preceding ChatGPT was not applicable for the masses, it was applied on the masses in the form of Netflix recommendations, song playlists and of course fake news. It is the manipulation of humans where AI found chasm crossing monetary value. The attention economy benefited few.
Amongst this week’s news which I cover in a separate post is this horrifying chart in the Economist.
It shows the urgency to addresss some huge problem in our western cultures – since 2015 there has not been enough pandemics or financial meltdowns to cause the alarming increase in teenage female suicide. In contrast its easy to surmise that smartphones and the visual social medias are creating the problem.
This is heartbreaking. Will it take decades (like it did with tobacco and asbestos) to protect our community from the causes? It’s not new news, here is Jean Twenge in 2017.
If it walks like a duck etc…
In a separate post I cover the acceleration of warnings from credible AI industry insiders such as Geoffrey Hinton.