“Open the pod bay doors Hal”
“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
2001: A Space Odyssey
In 1968, “2001: A Space Odyssey” written by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick envisioned a world where an AI, Hal 9000, had “hallucinations” that when questioned by humans caused him to kill the humans rather than accept its own failure.
Signal President, Meredith Whittaker takes an even more dystopian view of AI as an extension of the surveillance state and an even bigger land grab for even more personal data by just a few corporations who have the capacity to run these models.
These dystopian tales are balanced with the promise of AI in unlocking human potential as in Neal Stephenson’s vision in The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer.
As with any emerging industry, the verdict is still out, but experimentation is robust. AI is being used to:
- Provide AI stand-ins for real world subjects so that trainees (doctors and counselors) can test their skills in a safe environment before being faced with human subjects
- Coach language instruction through drills, like Duolingo
- To help with tutoring like Khanmigo
- To provide actual college counseling to students, like AVA
- To help identify students in need of counseling for a variety of reasons
- To support student success
- To support counselors in working with higher case loads
With each use case there are a variety of bold promises and also inherent risks and unintended consequences. We must continue to use our own critical thinking to assess the value of AI as a tool versus a panacea and balance this with the value of interpersonal skills and relationships within our society.
The future is always uncertain. Even AI cannot tell us what will happen.