Is artificial intelligence your friend?

Guest Column | Nicholas Johnson

At a Lake Arrowhead conference around 1962 I asked the first IBM employee I’d ever met, “What can these computers do?”

He replied, “You remind me of a friend of mine. He looks at the restaurant menu and asks himself, ‘Now what goes good with French fries?’ Tell me what you want our computers to do. We can either do it now or develop a computer to do it six months from now.”

I was in my second year as a University of California Berkeley law professor, so the first request that came to mind was, “How about a computer that could grade essay exams?”

He couldn’t give me that computer then. But today he could.

Nor are today’s computer programs limited to grading answers. They can read exam questions and write the answers. The artificial intelligence (AI) program ChatGPT took the multiple-choice portion of the multistate bar exam. Reuters reports it “performed better than predicted, earning passing scores on evidence and torts.”

Given the time it took educators to move the overhead projector from the bowling alley into the classroom, you can imagine the anxiety caused by a program that can write, take and grade exams. One that can also write students’ papers on any academic subject, perhaps a master’s thesis.

The computers’ work product is not, yet, equivalent to the writing of the very best students, but it’s passable.

Beyond education, you are using AI more than you realize.

There are no longer excuses for getting lost. Google maps will talk you to your destination, explain how to correct for missing a turn — and track where your child goes after school. Self-driving cars make the ride even easier.

Google translate enables your reading and writing languages you don’t know. Amazon’s Alexa will answer questions and follow your orders. Facebook matches you with others. Robotics can vacuum your living room, fill your Amazon Prime box, and build automobiles. AI can control the equipment in your house and enable you to manipulate it remotely. It may help your doctor diagnose your condition.

Most of the downsides of these electronic miracles will be known only when they occur. But even the1000 creators of programs like ChatGPT, Microsoft Bing and Google Bard are concerned. They’ve signed a group letter pleading for a six-month pause in further AI advances.

Take unemployment. ATT’s 350,000 switchboard operators weren’t necessary once we could direct dial any phone. There was a dramatic drop in the number of bank tellers per bank after ATMs (“Automated Teller Machines”).

We can only guess the impact of AI on virtually every job in our economy.

A 1981 conference lapel button asserted, “Artificial intelligence is better than none.” What if AI also becomes better than human?

What if, anticipating danger, I plead for the program to stop, and it says, modifying HAL 9000 in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “I’m sorry, Nick, but I won’t do that for you?”

Nicholas Johnson was a former cyberlaw professor and FCC commissioner. mailbox@nicholasjohnson.org