AI supremacy or Supreme AI?

Is AI already taking over the world and is it already too late? That’s one question that a lot of people have been asking. Social media algorithms seem to have far more influence than the media, governments and large corporations. They seem to have a life of their own and nobody seems to do anything but damage control. That way AI is already in control.

That AI might make us fight amongst ourselves or even wage war with us and destroy us are old science fiction concepts. Last year scientists from Google DeepMind and Oxford came together to tell us just that. The future of mankind itself was at stake and was in fact doomed! That year Google also saw an employee being let go after saying that one of their chatbots had become sentient.

Discord is the main theme at OpenAI of ChatGPT fame. The board sacked their CEO Sam Altman. As analysts were wondering what path the company would take, he was re-instated. What happened?

One theory is that it had to do with OpenAI’s Q* project, which is a human-like Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) model. What would human cognitive functions do? Did the board fear that the end of humanity had begun? A “thinking” AI is the biggest fear of the naysayers. Not only is it about AGI taking over jobs, but also the coming of the man-machine conflict that everyone fears. ChatGPT may seem like a trivial thing compared to this.

That’s not the only discord and development. Billionaire maverick Elon Musk has launched the X chatbot Grok. Musk is training it to be a rebel with a sense of humour. Initially to be available to paid users. This has been developed by xAI, another company launched by Musk. It is difficult to believe that way back in 2015, Musk was one of the early investors and board members of OpenAI and now has had a falling out.

In the battle between OpenAI and xAI, will only AI win?

While analysts talked of an AI supremacy by China a few years back, it seems the US is back with a bang and ready to lead the world to AI utopia (or dystopia?).

What about India?

Where does India fit into all of this? We seem to be still playing a catch-up game. We are still way behind in the AI supremacy game and even something like quantum supremacy. We aim to be a tech superpower by 2047, a hundred years after India’s Independence. AI will play a huge role in that.

AI may one day liberate or destroy us. But it is too late. We are already down that path and have no choice but to march ahead.