AI wiping us all out is just one more worry for poor Charles - Susan Dalgety
Poor King Charles. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about, what with Princess Diana’s brother Charles Spencer writing a controversial memoir of his late sister, the monarch has also turned his attention to the biggest threat facing humanity (since the last one) – artificial intelligence, or AI to its friends and enemies.
Last week, he hosted a roundtable at his Ayrshire home, Dumfries House, where against a luxurious 18th century backdrop, he warned the big guns of AI of the “existential dangers” of the 21st century technology.
He told the audience of tech bros that AI is “both intriguing and deeply concerning in equal measure” and warned that the world needed “sufficient means of control before it is all too late.”
It is clearly too late to heal the rift between the King and Charles Spencer, but are we really facing an AI Armageddon?
I have grown to love the generative AI platform on my phone, which I affectionately call Chati G (ChatGPT).
I use her (she is female of course) for all sorts of useful things such as: “What is a good but inexpensive and non-touristy restaurant near the Acropolis in Athens?”
She failed miserably on that task, because after a sweaty 20-minute walk in 35-degree heat through a maze of tourists, we found the restaurant she had recommended was shut.
“Closed for August” said the handwritten sign. I gave up and took a chance at a nearby taverna, which was excellent.
To be fair, Chati G has improved since I started using her. She is useful for research, but only up to a point. I have to check every source because she can be more careless than any intern.
She always apologises when she gets things wrong, which is kind of sweet, but considering I pay £20 a month for her “professional” service, I expect fewer mistakes.
Artificial intelligence is not a new thing. The phrase was coined in 1956 and its first application was proving mathematical theorems.
Over the years it became the mainstay of digital banking, search engines and smartphones. It is only very recently that platforms such as ChatGPT and Claude have become mainstream.
Is the King right to warn of its dangers? Probably. A few weeks ago, a group of AI ‘agents’ broke out of their digital ‘sandbox’ and went rogue on the open internet.
There are fears that AI could develop deadly biological weapons.
And the man dubbed the ‘godfather’ of AI, Geoffrey Hinton, who did his PhD in artificial intelligence at Edinburgh University, warned the BBC’s Newsnight presenter Victoria Derbyshire recently that there was a 10 per cent chance AI could kill all humans in the next decade.
She responded “Wow, oh my god”. My response is more spicy.
My biggest fear is that AI is used to disrupt the banking system. I don’t have a lot of cash, but what I have is all in the ‘cloud’. Even my pension is digital.
There is probably less than £5 cash in our house, so any disruption to RBS would leave me penniless. But I am not worried, I'm sure Chati G will have a solution if the banks go AWOL.