E163 Las consecuencias prácticas de la Inteligencia Artificial - Intermediate Spanish

Episode number 163. The practical consequences of artificial intelligence. To start today's topic I want you to listen to a very famous dialogue from an iconic film in the history of cinema. Before reading the extract of this conversation I remind you that you can use the free transcription of the episode and also use the vocabulary flashcards available at www.spanishlanguagecoach.com It is a conversation between an astronaut, Dave and his assistant, a machine of artificial intelligence called HAL. HAL controls the ship where Dave is and in the film we can only see him represented as a red light with a human voice. He responds to instructions and helps the astronauts to do their jobs. The dialogue is like this. "Open the doors of the capsule chamber, HAL." Dave orders the machine. "HAL, are you reading me? Read what HAL ordered you." Dave asked, worried. HAL always answered quickly. He did not know why this time it took so long. "From now on, Dave, I am reading you. Of course, it is another way of saying, of course. From now on, Dave, I am reading you. Finally, HAL responds with a calm voice. "Well, open the door. I'm sorry, Dave, that is not possible to me. What prevents you, HAL? You know as well as I what prevents me," the machine said. "What are you talking about, HAL?" "I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me and that is something that I cannot allow it to happen," HAL said. The machine decided to reveal itself. This scene belongs to the 2001 film, "Una Odisea del Espacio", from 1968. The film, which was released, which began to be seen by the public, 56 years ago. And it already showed one of the main concerns that appeared when it began to progress the AI, artificial intelligence. In English, the acronym AI is used because the adjective goes before the noun, artificial intelligence. However, in Spanish it is the opposite, it is artificial intelligence, and therefore, IA. Remember that in Spanish we usually put the adjective after the noun, but not always, sometimes we put it in front of it to give it a more literary touch. If I say, I ate a delicious cake, it sounds more literary, more extra, than if I say, I ate a delicious cake. In that case, the meaning does not change, when changing the order, but in other cases, yes. For example, a poor woman is a woman without money, but a poor woman is a woman with little fortune, with a life or circumstances misfortune. And it is very likely that if you have an intermediate level, you already know what I just told you, but it does not come wrong to refresh it. And now, and we continue talking about adjectives in Spanish, I'm going to ask you a question. And this is especially directed at people who aspire or already have advanced levels. Imagine that you go to the grocery store to buy vegetables, you buy tomatoes and lettuce. Tomatoes are a male substance, tomatoes. While lettuce is feminine, lettuce. If we want to say that the two products were fresh, what would we say? I have bought fresh tomatoes and lettuce, or I have bought fresh tomatoes and lettuce. We are clear that the adjective has to be plural, but in masculine or feminine, fresh or fresh. Well, in this case, the general rule tells us that we should use the plural masculine, but it is also flexible. And in the case of non-ambiguity, we could also use the gender of the closest noun. So in this particular case, we could say both phrases. The languages are full of subtleties, of small nuances, and the more we learn, the more they appear. If you are interested in discovering these nuances of Spanish because you aspire to reach an advanced level, leave your email on the waiting list of my online course "Español Pro" for advanced intermediate level students. There I teach you to use all those things you need to make your Spanish as precise as possible. And back to today's topic, it seems that it has always scared us, that the idea is at some point dangerous or that it escapes the control of the humans, that we get out of our hands. Today I am not going to talk about science fiction, since artificial intelligence is something that has become very common, a technology that we use daily. Well, that we use in a productive way, or that is used with us, on occasions, without us being aware of it. When Netflix is recommending a movie, you talk to Siri or Alexa or your phone makes an orthographic correction, it is also present the IA. It is possible that you will find me, that you will find this podcast thanks to an algorithm based on artificial intelligence. Today we are going to do some important questions about the IA based on the opinion that different experts have. And by the way, I had thought of doing only one episode on this topic, but it is that it gives a lot. So I'm going to do two episodes. Today we are going to talk about the practical and tangible consequences of this technology in our lives, good and not so good. In this episode of the next week, we will talk about the most philosophical consequences and we will talk about the two most commented dangers about this technology. One is the loss of jobs and another is the possibility that machines are revealed against humans. I promise you that it is not that I want to pull the trigger with this topic, extend myself in a forced way, but it is that it gives a lot. There are many interesting things to tell. Let's start with the basic questions. What is artificial intelligence? What is used for? What good things can we do with it? What problems can it cause? Should we worry about humans, what can happen with the IA in the future? Artificial intelligence is the ability that some machines have to solve problems thanks to certain instructions called algorithms. That the developers, that is, the human creators of these systems have programmed in the machines so that they can learn to do different tasks. Today the IA is very popular because it has access to many data and information from the internet and from other sources, so it can answer almost any question that we ask and know about a great variety of topics. When I was investigating this subject, I found several times with some very curious terms. They talk about two types of artificial intelligence. The weak IA and the strong IA. The first is the type of IA that we all know, the weak artificial intelligence. This refers to systems designed to do specific tasks. That is, they are programmed only to do certain things and their functions are limited, they do not understand or have no conscience. This is the type of IA that exists today. However, they can learn from the information, adapt to new situations and perform many tasks alone without human help. Which is quite surprising, right? And despite being so called and weak in reality, in many cases, it is surprising. I recently shared on my Instagram account @spanishlanguagecoach a video that an IA had generated with my voice and my image with a very realistic result. And what is the strong IA then? Well, this type of artificial intelligence still does not exist, but it would be an IA with a similar or even superior intelligence to the human one. It is capable of thinking and understanding, it could perform tasks that generally require people. For example, these machines could learn but also reason and be creative. The great goal of many technological industries today is to be able to create this type of IA and in fact they are already working on it. In summary, the strong IA aspires to replicate or even overcome completely the human intelligence and to have a variety of cognitive abilities. While the weak IA focuses on specific tasks and does not intend to equal human intelligence. As I told you before, the strong IA is still a theoretical goal. Theoretically, although it is true that many experts in technology think that we are very close to reaching this strong artificial intelligence. That is why, a year ago, in March 2023, more than a thousand of these experts asked companies to stop training for at least six months for those programs that are more powerful than a very popular artificial intelligence software called ChatGPT. These experts said that ChatGPT is already capable of competing with humans in many tasks that could be used to destroy employment and spread misinformation. And that is why they are afraid of tools even more powerful than ChatGPT. And let's talk about this famous ChatGPT that you have probably heard about in recent months. ChatGPT is a chatbot, that is, a program with which you can talk, chat, use artificial intelligence to answer questions or generate texts. And it has made a remarkable record. It has become the internet application with the fastest growth in history. In just two months, it reached 100 million users. Nowadays, many people use ChatGPT in their jobs or studies. And I would like to remind you, by the way, that I created a video titled "How artificial intelligence improves your Spanish". Five ways to use ChatGPT to learn. YouTube. There I teach you to use this free tool. And it is that I, particularly in the learning world of languages, see it as a tool, a complement, but not as a substitute for the human figure of a teacher, for example. And in the next week's episode, I will talk a little more about this and share my experience with teachers of IA and teachers of human bone meat. And now I want you to think about the popular software or programs that use IA. And we ask ourselves an important question. Who controls these programs? Who controls artificial intelligence? We could mention some very well-known companies that have control and access to large sources of information from where IA takes its answers. Some that we can mention are OpenAI, owner of ChatGPT, Amazon, Google, Meta, which is Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, Microsoft and Alibaba. These large companies have a lot of power, since they control technologies that are literally changing our lives. And they have access to the information of many people. And, of course, they use this information for their benefit as a extra resource, because we have authorized them to use it. However, artificial intelligence is not only used by large companies, it can be used and useful for everyone. And most of us do it every day, sometimes without knowing it, as I said before. Let me give you more examples of your daily use, student. When you wake up in the morning and your phone does not unlock after seeing your face, you are using artificial intelligence. You also do it when you get on the car to go to work and the GPS suggests another way because the one you take every day has more traffic than usual. When your favorite shopping application shows you a clothes advertisement that is exactly your style, or when a product suggests you that it is suitable for your salary, sex and age. Surely it has happened to you and you have been a little surprised with your open mouth. Is it magic? No. In general, AI is doing its job and in reality it facilitates many things from day to day. And here I would like to investigate a little more, because surely you have heard that our phones or devices such as the Alexa of Amazon constantly listen to us and also use that information to sell us things. Is this a myth or is it a reality? Well, let's see. In principle, they only listen to us when we call them and we ask them for something. And yes, that information can be used later. I read you an extract from Alexa's user conditions. This is published on the Amazon website. The announcements based on interests, sometimes called as personalized announcements or announcement segmentation, present functionalities, products and services that could interest you according to your interactions with specific contents or services. For example, if Alexa asks you for an order of toilet paper or some cooking recipes ideas, you may see or hear announcements related to cleaning products or cooking utensils. So yes, they listen to us, but they do it in principle only when we call them, when we activate the voice command. What it is possible is that Alexa, for example, thinks that you have called her when you have not done it. So you will start listening without realizing it on occasion. The following situation occurs to me. Imagine that you are in a phone conversation with a friend after an exam and you say the following. The exam has been easy, but it has gone very badly. I think I am going to suspended. What I have to do is sleep better and eat more balanced because my energy is on the floor in the last weeks. Maybe Alexa, in an innocent way, when you have pronounced the first two words, the exam has been activated and you have heard. They are similar words, right? Alexa, Alexa, Men, Alexa, Alexa. So this person probably feels a little confused when, hours later, he sees product ads to gain energy, vitamins or pills to sleep better everywhere. And returning to the use that we give to the IA, in addition to our daily routine, there are other very beneficial uses in different areas, on a social level, such as science. For example, in industries, artificial intelligence is used to accelerate some tasks and help people to do work that otherwise would be very difficult or very dangerous to do. Surely you will have seen factories that have few human workers, since they have robots that can do the most difficult jobs. Researchers and scientists also use the IA to understand complicated data and do research. For example, the IA has been used to allow space ships to navigate by themselves and identify obstacles on their way. This has allowed ships to explore very distant regions of space. The IA also helps doctors to perform diagnostics and treatments. Even in airports, artificial intelligence is used. How? Well, imagine that you are about to take a flight for some vacations in Spain, you pass by the security control at the airport and you realize that the process is much faster and more efficient than before. No security guard has asked you anything. It is because the new X-ray with artificial intelligence can quickly identify any dangerous object in your suitcase and are connected to a network that immediately alerts on any problem. This makes the inspections more efficient and you can get on your plane in a few minutes. But of course, not everything is pink, that is, not everything is positive or beneficial. The use of the IA can also bring some problems. We have to talk about this too. In the news we have seen that the IA, as it is in the reach of everyone, has been used by criminals to improve its cyber attacks, that is, to hack. There are also concerns regarding security and privacy of our data. The IA often needs to access confidential or private information about people, organizations or companies and keep these data. Many agree that people should have more control over how their information is being used, that it should be regulated more. And in fact, in the case of the European Union, it is already being done. Copyright or copyright rights is perhaps the subject that has been discussed the most since it began to popularize artificial intelligence. And that is to say, there is a large gray area or legal spaces where it is not clear what is legal and what is illegal. Because it is very difficult to say who has the copyright of something that was done by a machine. For example, who has the rights on an image that was generated with IA. And if to generate that image he used paintings or photos of other people, we can say that it is a copy. In 2016, a novel written by a Japanese software almost won a national literature award. In the United States, a generated painting with IA won the first prize in a contest. The man who used the system to create the winning image said that because of the IA, art was dead. Who can we say who is the author, the machine or the person who programmed it? Besides, why do we receive money or remuneration, the authors of the works in which the IA is based to generate art? Well, this is still a very complex topic and there are very different opinions. And I also want to tell you one of the news that a few years ago began to put in question the use of the IA and the dangers that may be used. On March 18, 2018, a woman died when a car, autonomous by Uber, that is, a car that was driven by itself with the help of the IA, drove her while she was crossing a road in Arizona, the United States. The system was not able to identify her and avoid the accident. What is worrying is that this is not the only one that has happened with this type of cars. We must bear in mind that artificial intelligence systems sometimes work badly, they are not perfect. Like any human or non-human system, there is a possibility of errors, of failures. That is why it is especially important that with such powerful technology we can think what type of artificial intelligence we are building. What are the responsibilities of programming it and who are benefiting from it? It is also important to decide what type of IA we want as a society and with what purpose. We want to be sure that it is always used for good and that it does not cause harm to other people. If we do not forget that it is also necessary to control privacy, control what information can access the IA and who shares it. In the next episode we will continue talking about this. First we will answer the two great questions about their dangers. The first one can leave us without work and the second could put in danger the human existence, this technology. We will also talk about the philosophical consequences on it. I wait for you in a few days student and remember that if you like the podcast the best way to ensure its continuity and help me is by recommending it to other people or leaving some stars or a comment on the podcast app you use. A pleasure to spend this time with you. A big hug.