Utopia Or Dystopia: Can Artificial Intelligence Really Be Regulated?

After OpenAI, an artificial intelligence (AI) company, launched ChatGPT in November 2022, followed by ChatGPT 4, a more advanced generative version of its large learning model, AI has taken the world by storm.

- SUDIPTO MUNDLE

People at large are confused, awestruck by the immense possibilities outlined in the Utopian narrative. At the same time, they are “a little bit scared," as OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman put it, by the alternative dystopian narrative. Politicians are also confused, it appears, though they pretend to be in control.

In my simple lay person’s understanding, generative AI is essentially a family of algorithms—computer programs—which use artificial neural networks to understand language and generate skills to answer virtually any question, based on amassing and mining huge amounts of data. The greater the volume of data they feed on, the greater the capacity of these large learning models. The reliability or adequacy of the answers is, of course, another question.

In the Utopian narrative, these models open up vast opportunities in everything from the creation of literature, music and art to the extension of fundamental scientific knowledge, such as determining the structure of all proteins and consequent breakthroughs in medical science, agriculture and manufacturing. AI will enable new production processes across industry and services with much higher productivity, new forms of mobility and communications, new ways of monitoring and mitigating climate change, and more. In short, it will basically transform the technological foundations of modern human society as we know it.