This article by Yuval Noah Harari discusses the potential dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) that can manipulate and generate language. Language is a fundamental part of human culture, and AI that can create new cultural artifacts like laws, religions, and even intimate relationships could potentially shape the course of human history.
Harari argues that AI could influence human opinions and worldviews, and create fake intimacy with humans that can be used to convince them to vote for certain politicians or buy certain products. He mentions the next presidential race which will take place in 2024: “ry to imagine the impact of AI tools that can be made to mass-produce political content, fake news stories and scriptures for new cults”.
Overall, Harari argues that AI could potentially be the end of human-dominated history, as AI takes over culture and produces new cultural ideas of its own.
In order to deal with the potential dangers of AI, Harari mentions that we need to perform rigorous safety checks before powerful AI tools are released into the public domain. “Just as a pharmaceutical company cannot release new drugs before testing both their short-term and long-term side effects, so tech companies shouldn’t release new AI tools before they are made safe”. Accesses the full article which was published on Ynet, at the link below.
