6 Ridiculous Things People Think AI Will Do
6 Ridiculous Things People Think AI Will Do But (Probably) Never Will
6 Ridiculous Things People Think AI Will Do But (Probably) Never Will
Separating AI hype from reality: Why most AI doomsday scenarios are more science fiction than future fact
AI WILL LEAD A COUNTRY OR BECOME CEO. IT WON'T AND IT NEVER WILL.
Don't you find those who repeat all day long that AI will dominate the world, AI will replace all jobs, AI will do or AI will do this boring? π‘ There are so many misconceptions being spread about what AI will or won't be able to do that it's getting annoying. π€π₯ And if I tell you that some preconceived notions about AI are wrong and that AI will do thisβ¦ won't happen. At leastβ¦ not exactly as you might have hoped. π Stay with me because you're eager to discover AI's true potential. We know you care about your future β your career, your creativity, your edge in a world hurtling towards automation. These six ridiculous things people think AI will do but (probably) never will. Trust me, it's worth a read. π
Misconception #1: Programmers Will Soon Be Obsolete
β In any case, AI can do what programmers can do, and they'll soon be replaced. Direct answer: No, indirect answer: Maybe. I think this is the most obvious case we hear. And you can feel it every day on social networks, just type in a prompt with ChatGPT or Claude AI and get the code for an application that will revolutionize the technology sector. Can't you already smell the scam? Already, we're forgetting that AI just collects data and regurgitates it later in the form of code. So, if AI simply recycles similar data over and over again and then sends it back to us, we'd end up with applications that don't really stand out from the crowd. So we need programmers who will implement new codes, examine different approaches to solving problems. It would be easier to ask an AI to write the code for the new Microsoft Office PowerPoint if thousands of source codes for similar applications already existed on the Web. Hence the fact that you can't simply ask an AI to create a complete software package for you. All the same, it's important to note that these comments should be taken with a grain of salt, since we're hearing talk of general AI reaching an optimal level of consciousness. Even then, it would be difficult to do without programmers. The Bug Problem: Why AI Can't Replace Human Engineers Let's imagine you have a general AI in your possession. You run a prompt and you get your new, almost identical PowerPoint program. Tell me how you're going to deal with the presence of a bug? Well, if there's one thing to bear in mind, it's that a programmer's sole aim is not to create code or programs. He's constantly dealing with potential bugs that may arise in his program, and working hard to find solutions to improve the software's performance. I don't believe that a simple prompt can solve this kind of problem, which requires a considerable amount of thought. The XZ Backdoor: A Real-World Example On April 01, 2024, Andres Freund, a software engineer at Microsoft, had recently been running performance tests on a tool he was working on, with the aim of finding anything that might slow down his program in order to optimize it as much as possible. This term has a name, and it's called micro-benchmarking. He noticed a small but unusual delay that day, during which the processor was using far more resources than usual. He measured this delay and found it to be 500 milliseconds. This was a little strange for Andres, who began to investigate and discovered that this latency was not caused by his program, but by an external program installed on his machine. Something had crept into the XZ program. XZ is a compression format. It takes a file or folder, compresses it thoroughly (stronger than ZIP or RAR most of the time), and outputs it with the .xz extension. The result: a smaller file that's easier to store or send. It uses a technique called LZMA2, which is super-efficient for reducing the size of files, especially large ones like databases, logs or programs. Back to our story, since Andres Freund had just discovered a backdoor. A backdoor is like a completely secret door that a hacker integrates into a program. Once this program is installed on a program or server, the hacker can control it remotely without anyone knowing. This can become really dangerous if it affects servers belonging to governments or large corporations. Back to our story. Where did this backdoor come from? Well, there was a contributor by the name of "Jian Tan" who helped maintain XZ mainly through certain updates. He was kind, super-active, dedicated, in short, a good guyβ¦ on the surface. Eventually, he gained everyone's trust and even took control of the project. Once in control, he slipped a modification into the code that was not easy to detect, even for experts. This backdoor enabled someone to remotely execute code on a Linux system using XZ, and especially on systems running OpenSSH (the software that enables remote connection to servers). If an update had taken place, thousands of Linux servers could have been hacked and no one would have noticed. If that Microsoft engineer, Andres Freund, hadn't noticed that certain programs were becoming slow, if he hadn't dug and dug and discovered that XZ did more than compress files: it spied quietly, Linux distributors like debian, Ubuntu and fedora would have integrated it into their systems, and here we are facing a global catastrophe in the world of computing. So yes, an AI can create prompts, can create code, but if you don't understand the code behind it, if you don't know how to optimize it to make it perform better, you'll be vulnerable to cyber attacks. This also implies that you don't need a cyber security engineer. Rather, I believe that some programmers will be obsolete. Those who can't put artificial intelligence to work for them. It's also a question of those who, having a basic knowledge of programming, think they can get by with AI at the helm. As long as they understand the code, that's fine! After all, big companies aren't going to lay off all their software engineers overnight. That's like asking them to replace their COBOL code with C++, for example. However, the new start-ups that are emerging have the capacity to limit the presence of software engineers. The arrival of tractors didn't put farmers out of work, and the birth of the Internet didn't put couriers out of work either. So engineers won't be totally replaced, but they may be reduced in companies over the decades.
We're Going to Make Movies with AI
Right! I want to take a photo. To do so, I need to exist somewhere in time and space, and as a conscious being. I'd also have to use a camera to capture a moment of physical reality, and all that light pattern I capture would automatically be transcribed into a 2D representation of that reality that we commonly call a photo. Then the light would have to pass through the eyes of another conscious being. What AI promises is that we'll no longer need this process of taking photos, no conscious being, no reality. What we have to understand is that AI doesn't really have a real referential. What I mean is that AI gathers other images, mixes them like a salad and tries to produce something that looks like an image but isn't in reality. They're just static constructions, remember that. This is particularly true when you consider that, to promote Tesla, Elon musk used AI to generate images that look surprisingly like Blade Runner 2049. AI-generated imagery often mimics existing visual styles rather than creating truly original aesthetics In a way, these AI generatives are being sold to us as a means of creating convincing visual sequences without the need for human beings. I find this sad for cinema, because films that took decades to make will be trivialized. If the next Avatar Fire & Ash came out, it would be seen several years later as something that was made by AI, or that AI can make something similar, which won't have the same visual punch. The Essence of Cinema You know what makes a good film? It's the emotions that are released, it's a question of visual impact. It's about mastering the language of film. A look, a light, a soundtrack, a silence that speaks to us, that comes from reality β that's pure cinema. β This is the Art of Filmmaking Behind every film is a director who innovates, who manages a team, who invents new technologies when the need arises. James Cameron, Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg don't just film, they create unforgettable experiences. Interstellar's music, composed by Hans Zimmer, creates so many emotions and thrills that we wonder if AI can do the same. The Power of Original Vision A film creates images that nobody has seen before. The proof comes from the film Avatar. It's a classic story: a stranger meets a tribe, falls in love and fights against his own people, who want to bring their own brand of imperialism. However, the visual and sensory world presented to us, never seen before, was a revelation. It would be ridiculous to think that the stunts performed by Tom Cruise in the film Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and those performed by Jackie Chan could be done by an AI. These stunts created authenticity, truth and reality. Films will continue to be the work of men. Studios may think they can cut production costs by using generative AI everywhere, but audiences won't go for it. Real cinema is about making an inner conflict visible through powerful images. Read the full article
