BY MULUGETA GUDETA
In their novels entitled “Brave New World” and “1984”, British writer Gorge Aldus Hulexy and Gorge Orwel predicted that one day the world would be ruled by machines that will take orders from humans and the most powerful among them he called “Big Brother” as a metaphor for a world ruled by authoritarianism and managed by machines Big Brother would control and manipulate society.
The authors’ imaginative predictions did not come real as exact reflections of his thoughtful proposals. Yet, they indicated the contours of what a society increasingly ruled by powerful men could look like and this has proved true in the now defunct communist systems that empowered machines at the cost of human being.
In this age of globalism, technology knows no boundaries. It may start from anywhere in the world, in the developed Western world to be more precise, and spread to other countries at unprecedented pace and impacts the lives of hundreds of millions of people there. Look how Internet was created and spread throughout the world in the last 25 years and has become an indispensable tool of daily life in most Western countries as well as in less developed ones that are still struggling to master the technology.
Some insiders of the latest cyber technology technological known as Artificial Intelligence (AI) say that the new invention marks the beginning of the fourth industrial revolution as it would impact the lives of millions of people in the near future for better or worse. Others may differ but they do not deny the deep impact AI is already making in the lives of many people, and those engaged in the creative industry in the West to start with.
Earlier this month, artists and all those engaged in related activities in Hollywood studios, the biggest agglomeration of movie studios on this planet, went on strike protesting against the recent decision by studio managers to lay off hundreds if not thousands of workers in the creative and allied industry. They protested the fact that AI is threatening to replace creative workers and take on their jobs through computer applications that take orders from tech- savvy humans.
The interesting thing about new inventions in the cyber world is that once they are created somewhere on the cyber highway, they are bound to invade the whole world and irresistibly invade the markets thereby creating huge demands for the new technology. They have a snowball effect as they lead to yet other new inventions. The Internet made its debut in the military industrial complex and then exploded into civilian laboratories to prove its phenomenal impact that has already benefitted humanity in many ways.
Some 30 or so years ago, most offices in African countries were operated by men using simple or traditional computing tools like the typewriter, the calculating machine or some other archaic gadgetry. In the last 30 years or so, these countries have seen transformations in their daily lives and workplaces that were not even imaginable a decade earlier. Who had predicted that most offices and schools in developing countries could be operated via computers and related technology, the plasma TV or the satellite-operated tools.
If we look at the new obsession with AI which only a handful of experts can understand and use at this early stage, the developing world might seem a little left behind but the inevitable thing is that AI will soon catch up with traditional communities as the computer has caught up with them in the past. The time frame for such transformation might even be shorter than it used to be in the case of harnessing computer technology.
The reason is that whenever a new technology or application is invented, it usually comes up with easy-to-do techniques that make it understandable even to the less educated members of communities, usually in places like Africa. It is to be recalled that people living in the rural areas of Africa had a hard time understanding cellular phones and even more, using them in their daily lives. Nowadays, the least educated among them is using this invention as if it were a coin they could flip flop with their hands.
The downsize of Artificial Intelligence is something to worry about according to experts who have already a profound grasp of the new invention which is basically an application which is used by men and women in order to do things that were so far beyond their ability to understand and perform. I recently came across an advertisement in Google News that told people to use the new application in order to edit their writings or invent stories that can be plotted by AI “writers” and would be far more perfect than what the best script writer in a Hollywood studio would come up with.
AI is already a palpable reality and is here to help us or rob our daily bread as the demonstrators at the Hollywood rallies said. Every human invention usually comes with drawbacks and it is up to intelligent people to tell us what is what with AI as the newest and the most amazing application trying to replace human mind with a piece of gadget that thinks for us. Africa and the rest of the world may be alarmed by this kind of development but it would only be a temporary surprise that will soon become an ordinary part of daily life.
Similarly, we were amazed to see robots that are doing household chores for us and marveled at the thought where the future of the housewife would lie? Soon, life will make it evident that humans are irreplaceable but complemented by their own inventions. By the same token, AI applications might displace workers to take over their jobs for now but at some point in the future that will not presumably far off, it will expose it Achilles Heels and invite men and women back to the drawing board. AI may be smart for the moment but it would soon prove less smart than the human mind that only God can beat.
The entire Hollywood crew of writers, producers, directors camera operators and makeup artists, to name only some of them, had recently gone on strike in protest of the latest measures to lay off thousands of workers and replace them with Artificial Intelligence applications that would take over their works more efficiently and faster. This is a typical case machine to do the jobs the former used to perform for centuries since the invention of cinema. The decision is clearly tantamount to condemning studio employees and their families to unemployment and loss of income in these difficult times.
Times have certainly changed but the events are similar. When in the 19th century machines started to do jobs that were done by men in the major industries such as mining and manufacturing, the era of the struggle between man against machines started with a bang that shocked the Western world. Capitalism had entered a new phase and workers were threatened of losing their bread as raw human labor was being replaced with refined and speedy machine performance at lower production costs.
The consequences of this development were far reaching as the history of the struggle between labor and capital subsequently demonstrated. The revolutions of 1848, the Paris commune of 1871 and World War I highlighted the nascent contradictions between capitalism and the working class in Europe. It was soon after Karl Marx declared that workers should unite to overthrow the capitalist system in Europe and made the
historic call, “Workers of the World Unite!” This call went unheard and sometimes produced revolutionary movements that nominally put workers in power for limited times. Capitalism has proved resilient and capable of inventing not only machines but also the ideas that allowed it to survive some of the most powerful backlashes until roughly the 2008 Great Recession in America and beyond.
Technology is no doubt the harbinger of modern progress. In the meantime, underdeveloped countries have found the opportunity to play catch up in technology without inventing the wheel so to say and taken shortcuts to modernization. China is the best example in this century. It has successfully caught up with the Western industrial giants in Europe, the US and Asia in a matter of 30 or 35 years without going through the painful process of “inventing their industrial revolutions”.
They have even bypassed so many steps along the way that could have taken many centuries for them to arrive at the stage of economic and technological developments they have reached now. Once they laid down the basic technological infrastructures, they have become self-sufficient in applying it to their specific conditions and needs. That is why the Chinese way to technological development has now become the envy of the underdeveloped world.
The Chinese may be working on their version of AI development because the two economic superpowers, namely the US and China are developing parallel to one another as if one reads the other’s mind. The rest of the world will soon follow. The basic principle of the unstoppable growth of technology is of course fueled by the search for higher profits. This is the driving force of market economies.
AI, like any invention before it, knows no boundaries or borders and will soon flow openly in all parts of the world, enabling men and women to use it in a way that is rational and profitable to mankind as a whole and not only to the Jeff Bezos and Elon Musks of this world. The future relationship between AI and artistic creativity is a largely uncharted territory. The good thing is that the debate around the merits and setbacks of AI is already started and would engulf everyone sooner rather than later.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 12 MAY 2023
