Don't just complain about AI, engage in its development

 

 In 2000, I graduated from university and started working as a journalist. One of the things that I had to do during my interview for the newspaper job was to use a search engine. I was given a piece of paper with several names and phrases on it and told to search for information online.

So simple, yet so necessary at that time. The internet was only a few years old, and search engines like Yahoo! and Ask Jeeves were the hottest thing. It was amazing because you could type in anything and Jeeves would give you a list of websites where you could find it.

However, many other journalists didn’t share my opinion. They said that it kills the very essence of journalism because now reporters didn’t need to do "real" research anymore. Their gripe was that it made things a little too easy and you could never trust where the information was coming from.

Fast forward 26 years and we're hearing the same conversation with AI. I don’t think I need to list all the arguments against it, as I'm sure we've all heard of them already. If you were around in 2000, the arguments against AI today might sound pretty similar to those made against the internet back then.

If you open up the history books, I will bet my bottom ringgit that you will see all these arguments every time a new form of technology emerges. I teach these things in university, so trust me when I say that it also happened when radio became a thing and later on, television.

Whenever new technologies rise, undeniably there will be negative impacts, but they don't outweigh the positives. No matter what, these technologies are here to stay, as the positive impacts are more advantageous to society.

What happens to the negative impacts? We study them and think of ways to mitigate, eliminate or minimise them. For example, why do we drive cars? It’s detrimental to the environment, but we still do it. But as the years go by, we have found ways to minimise the effects.

The future is nigh

The same goes for AI, it is such an amazing technology that can contribute so much to society. Does it have its bad side? Of course, and we are already flagging these issues. In due time, the many intelligent people working on it will manage these problems.

AI is here to stay, whatever the arguments - from curbing creativity, eliminating jobs and plagiarism, to robots taking over the world - these are all issues that we have faced before. And we have always found ways to manage and mitigate it all. Sometimes, later rather than sooner, but we still do.

Take jobs, for example. Why is it so hard for people to understand that new technology will always kill off some jobs, but over time, it creates new ones? Look at how the internet has created so many jobs that were inconceivable a few decades ago.

I bet Parameswara wouldn’t have imagined there would be such a profession as a media strategist. Neither would Tunku Abdul Rahman ever have known that a UX designer would be a much sought-after job these days. So it goes to show that evolution and progression always happen.

As for the creative and content industry, collectively, they are already coming up and experimenting with different rules and regulations on AI usage that will be fine-tuned along the way. It'll be the same for many other sectors, including education and research.

Can't replicate human touch

Whatever it is, I am confident that AI will never be able to replace the human element. It cannot replace lived experiences, critical thought or human perspective and opinions. People used to fear the same about the internet back in the late 1990s too, and it has been proven wrong, humans can't be replaced.

If you are a writer, try asking AI to write an article for you. Almost everyone would be able to tell that it was AI-written, as it would be dry and soulless. Even lecturers can easily tell when students submit AI-generated assignments instead of doing it on their own.

However, we shouldn’t be afraid of the tool. Those who aggressively oppose AI just don’t get it. Many complain that the boomer mentality opposes everything new without considering the advantages, yet they do the same.

Are they really not going to touch AI at all? I doubt it, because everything in the world will eventually have an AI element to it and then what? Are they going to recoil and not engage at all?

Keep an open mind and look at it from a bigger perspective. One can be critical of AI, in fact, we need to be, but instead of complaining or rejecting it, engage in the conversation or, better still, in the development. Contribute towards the progression of how society utilises AI. - Mkini

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ZAN AZLEE is a writer, documentary filmmaker, journalist and academic. Visit fatbidin.com to view his work.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.