F. van Harmelen and F. Hermans on dangers and possibilities of AI

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28 October 2024

Frank van Harmelen and Felienne Hermans in the Volkskrant on dangers and possibilities of AI

Frank van Harmelen

"It is simplistic to talk of one sort of intelligence only and to compare everything to it. Machine intelligence will not exceed human intelligence, it will be different.

In certain ways machines will surpass humans and vice versa. The challenge is how to make human and machine intelligence complement one another."

"Science is the biggest engine of our prosperity, and the biggest potential of AI is how to increase its performance. AI makes it possible for scientists to faster analyse data, read literature and communicate more efficiently."

Felienne Hermans

"In the short term the use of AI will only cause more problems, like childcare benefits scandal, because the algorithms are anything but neutral. In the long term, the threat is bigger, namely that people will lose their ability of critical thinking because the temptation to address ChatGPT will be just too big. In his book "Crisis of Narration", South Korean philosopher, Byong-Chul Han wrote down, how humans as part of humanity will lose their ability to tell stories. I'm afraid the problem is even deeper: we may find ourselves in a 'crisis of thinking."​

"In his response to continuously being sent unasked-for AI songs, written in the Nick Cave style, Nick Cave said: 'Songs are born out of suffering, which means they come forth from heavy inner struggle, which one needs to create. For as far as I know, algorithms do not feel anything. Data do not suffer.' This is true. When people make music or write stories, the feelings they express are totally unique."

Click here to read more (in Dutch).