Battle between man and machine The accuracy of AI and beauty of human error

AI article-AI founder Geoffrey Hinton says that technology is getting out of hand

People in my ‘league’ trust that we would continue to see human error taking place at offices and in schools. We can still cherish  human error because there is  beauty in that. Errors remind us that we are human and  must improve. We need motivation as humans and appreciation when we do good work. AI might stop when it doesn’t know, but the human brain will continue to work hard till it finds solutions and naturally fatigue sets in

My 20-year-old son, who uses astrology a lot, suddenly turned to me one day and said that an AI (Artificial Intelligence) based reading he had received regarding his life blew his mind away. Till then, he was one of the most dissatisfied individuals in his dealings with local astrologers and their predictions.

I have had my experiences using AI as a tool. What it offers me has been thought provoking, more than being helpful. I say this especially from the perspective that I am a career journalist. We scribes have been warned that very soon AI based ‘workstations’would wipe out this breed of hardcore journalists! 

The world had its initial experiences of AI in Antiquity. AI was spoken about in workshops in the mid-1950s. My dad, who is dead and gone now, would have been in his teens when this happened. But life rolled on and men worked hard even back then. That was possibly because of people like my dad who believed in one main work philosophy which was ‘get the system right at your workplace because then you don’t have to sweat much, especially if you are the boss’. But he had another second work philosophy; don’t delegate a piece of work if it’s absolutely important, because then you must do it yourself. 

His grandson (my son) is an AI user. He belongs to a generation which doesn’t feel deeply about retaining individual traits and would gladly allow a machine to take over human work. 

Chatbots and Large Language Models

Very soon, he is going to give me a lecture that wonders can be achieved with AI. This is because we can see that artificial beings are endowed with intelligence or consciousness by master craftsmen. A good example is Chatbots and Large Language Models. He is soon going to use them and talk about them. Right now, he demands about half an hour from me each day, when I return home from work,  to have a conversation. Soon, I’ll be going to him and making attempts to strike up a conversation and demand his time. He is still a ‘human being’ and values the human ‘touch’ and human conversation, but for how long?

In a world where there is too much hope thanks to AI, there is also little hope for us individuals who think entirely like humans. I am a part-time English teacher, by the way. Would I be seeing AI supported essays by my students when I check homework? What’s the fun in checking an essay which is flawless thanks to AI support? 

This is a time when we teachers and old school types must be alert about AI’s advances. We must be updated about the growth of AI, despite there being warnings that average humans will not be able to predict what AI is planning next. There are predictions that AI users might have to switch to a language designed by AI experts. Right now the language used for AI is English. 

People in my ‘league’ trust that we would continue to see human error taking place at offices and in schools. We can still cherish human error because there is beauty in that. Errors remind us that we are human and must improve. 

Biology tuition master Dinesh Muthugala tells during his first lecture to promising students who have passed the GCE O’ Level Exam and joined his A’ Level tuition class:  “Be careful, you can get it wrong”. This is simply a friendly warning to the bright student arriving at his academy after success at the O’ Level Exam not to let initial achievements massage the ego. Only humans massage their egos. 

AI is not going to save a nation if state officials are not flexible and are not allowed to use commonsense. When the tsunami struck this island in 2004, so many groups bringing aid had to turn back. These groups were bringing aid to Sri Lanka and port authorities were telling vessels bringing these goods to honour protocol and pay port tax. One such affected group was led by famous International Boxer Evander Holyfield. Evander told this scribe that he was disappointed about the attitude of officials and red tape policies in the island. AI is promoting replacing the human workforce. But there are enough occasions when humans, who have good personal relation skills, as opposed to AI, can save the day for an institute or the country. 

We have unpleasant memories of the brutal civil war. The turning point in this civil war and defeat for the LTTE came when the rebels decided to close the Mavil Aru Anicut in 2006.This denied water to civilians and farmers. That triggered Eelam War IV and spelt doom for the terrorists. Wars are planned using the best technology, but the above war ended due to a human error made by the tiger rebels. Here the opportunity for ‘good’ to defeat ‘evil’ arose because of a human error. We are experiencing the bliss of peace thanks to that human error made by terrorist leaders. 

We need motivation as humans and appreciation when we do good work. AI might stop when it doesn’t know, but the human brain will continue to work hard till it finds solutions and allow fatigue to set in. If you look from the sidelines of human life and stay neutral, we see a battle between man and machine taking place; AI founder Geoffrey Hinton says that technology is getting out of hand. Machine is replacing man alarmingly. 

It is in an environment like this that media personalities like Saman Athaudahetti appear and give us hope. He appeared in the Nuga Sevana programme aired on Rupavahini on September 29 and underscored the importance of not using AI when translating books. He gave a warning regarding the negative aspects when a book written in a foreign language is translated to Sinhala using AI tools. He said that then only a word to word translation is churned out, leaving out the emotions, cultures and colours of a society. Such translations are then read by proofreaders who don’t bother to have the original work of the author to aid reference work. According to Saman, such books will be produced in all its rawness. 

AI will prevail, but it won’t rule the roost till creative and evergreen individuals like Saman Athaudahetti exist. These are days to keep our thinking caps on, all the time.