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Skynet Is Not Coming
Reasons why fears about chatbots and other AI are misplaced
Every time a new technology emerges, up springs a cohort of enthusiasts who plaster the Internet with tales about how this new miracle will dominate every aspect of life. A mere handful of years ago we were told that blockchain was the magic that would transform the future, giving us among other marvels blockchain toothpaste, blockchain fried chicken, and blockchain toilet paper. Today, however, the gleam has faded from blockchain and — as we skeptics correctly predicted — for the most part blockchain is a solution desperately looking for relevant problems, of which there are in fact very few. It turns out that crypto currencies really were just speculative and quite worthless as actual mechanisms of exchange, and it turns out that aside from the usual gullible types who get sucked into every new scam, non-fungible tokens are likewise valueless.
But surely ChatGPT4 and its successors will this time, really truly, be different? Surely this isn’t just another Internet hype driven by technology enthusiasts who fail to understand enough about the real world to see the inevitable limitations of their shiny new toy?
As this article will attempt to explain, ChatGPT isn’t going to destroy 300 million jobs and lead ultimately to the extinction of humankind (though…
