On December 2, 1942, a team of scientists led by Enrico Fermi finished their lunch. They then returned to their workplace, where they witnessed the first self-sustaining and controlled nuclear reaction created by humanity. It took place inside a pile of bricks and wood situated under a football field at the University of Chicago. The result of this project, known as the creation of the Chicago Pile-1, was celebrated quietly with a single bottle of Chianti that was later signed by the 49 people who witnessed the event[4]. Those present understood what had just occurred and the implications it would have for the history of humanity. Words were unnecessary.
Today, something new is happening, and with the same silence as in the previous case, it is changing the world forever. Just like a word whispered in a foreign language, it is possible that we have already heard the term “Artificial Intelligence,” generally abbreviated as “AI,” and ignored it, perhaps due to a lack of interest or because we imagined it was something very difficult to understand. However, it is extremely important that we understand what we mean when we talk about AI, as we are not talking about a distant future but events with consequences that impact the present and the immediate future. Thus, just as the globalized economy will be shaken, the way we live and interact within it is about to change radically.
In simple terms, AI consists of automatic learning performed by computers to achieve a goal by simulating the human learning process. They only need to be “fed” with a large amount of data, and then the technology will start to qualify the information, label it, and cross-reference it to draw all possible conclusions and find the best path to achieve its final goal. It is a bit more complex than this, and there is no precise definition that all experts agree on, but when discussing Artificial Intelligence, at the end of the day, as Professor Stuart Russell[5] states, we are talking about an agent, in the form of software, that acts according to the parameters it receives. How does it receive them? That will depend on each case, but it might observe these parameters through video images like an autonomous vehicle, to decide what action to take with the steering wheel. Its goal, then, is to ensure that the actions to be executed are the right ones according to the goal we gave the agent. Ultimately, we are talking about a rational entity that seeks to achieve its goal continuously and precisely. It can be something simple or complex; it doesn’t matter how many lines of code its algorithm has. In fact, if we think about it, a thermostat is an agent that perceives temperature and takes actions such as turning the heat source on or off based on a set of simple rules. If the temperature is too high, it must turn off the thermostat, but if it is below the desired level, it must turn it on. Is that AI? For now, let’s leave it aside; what matters is that we understand the importance of continuous evolution between simple and complex agents like us humans.
Perhaps some readers remember when, in 1997, IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue defeated the world chess champion Garry Kasparov. This victory of technology over humanity seems minor today, and to some extent, this appears justified, given the recent advances in the field of study, it is clear that we have moved from linear to exponentially accelerated automatic learning. In light of these advances, especially those in forms of Artificial Intelligence oriented towards specific tasks, it seems clear that we are not prepared for this upcoming revolution while we continue to insist on employment as our main source of income.
Although this may seem like an exaggeration, as we understand that there are different types of jobs and can categorize them individually, we can clearly see what information technology and robotics have been doing to human employment so far. There is no need to list the manual activities that have been replaced or have begun to demand fewer human hands due to the implementation of heavy machinery throughout the first, second, and third Industrial Revolutions; we won’t waste time on that, the examples are well known. Moreover, it is also known that ultimately, after these revolutions, more jobs were created than were eliminated. However, this time this may not be repeated, and there lies the core of our problem. Will it be so?
[4] Drapa, M. (2017). A witness to atomic history. Chicago News. Visto el 15 de junio del 2021, en https://news.uchicago.edu/story/witness-atomic-history.
[5] Experts Explain: What is AI? | Computer scientist Stuart Russell | WEF. YouTube. (2022). Visto el 17 de junio del 2022, en https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5E2K7x5pGo.