\n To be fair, back in the late 1980s, few could foresee what a phenomenon it would become.\n<\/p>\n
\n Except, of course, people like Jeff Bezos, whose Amazon empire shows what a misguided fool I was!\n<\/p>\n
\n Now the internet rules our lives, for better or for worse.\n<\/p>\n
\n There can only be a few who don\u2019t at some point indulge in online shopping (never mind the High Street) or ask Google to settle a family argument.\n<\/p>\n
\n But I am deeply worried about the advances now in AI (Artificial Intelligence).\n<\/p>\n
\n It\u2019s all happening at such a frightening speed, even by 21st-century standards.\n<\/p>\n
\n Of course, it has its benefits; the advantages are already plain to see.\n<\/p>\n
\n Hospitals are using AI to read scans faster and more accurately than any human could.\n<\/p>\n
\n A local surgeon I spoke to recently said it wasn\u2019t beyond the realms of possibility that one day AI could be handling surgery, just program in patient notes and MRI\/CT scans and let the computer do the rest.\n<\/p>\n
\n Really?\n<\/p>\n
\n Don\u2019t let me be the first patient!\n<\/p>\n
\n The negatives are also in clear view.\n<\/p>\n
\n People\u2019s images, their voices, their faces are being manipulated to the point that you have no idea whether that video of Clinton Rogers is real or not.\n<\/p>\n
\n With this technology back in the day, I could have taken a month away from BBC Points West, and no one would have noticed.\n<\/p>\n
\n Seriously, though, what can we believe now?\n<\/p>\n
\n I have a habit of wasting at least half an hour each morning scrolling through Facebook.\n<\/p>\n
\n When I come across exciting videos or images, I frequently show my wife, and her first question is: “Yes, but is that real?”\n<\/p>\n
\n I can\u2019t answer.\n<\/p>\n
\n And so some genuinely exciting\/dramatic\/ground-breaking films are now being doubted.\n<\/p>\n
\n What a shame.\n<\/p>\n
\n And that\u2019s just the start.\n<\/p>\n
\n AI is already being used to spread misinformation, manipulate elections (or so we are told), and wage cyber warfare.\n<\/p>\n
\n So where does that leave us now?\n<\/p>\n
\n Like electricity and the mobile phone, AI is here to stay.\n<\/p>\n
\n It will transform our lives in ways that right now we cannot fully imagine (not sure I want to).\n<\/p>\n
\n The challenge for us all \u2013 politicians, scientists, and ordinary folk like you and me \u2013 is to harness its benefits while guarding against its obvious dangers.\n<\/p>\n
\n And if you know how to do that, let me know!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To be fair, back in the late 1980s, few could foresee what a phenomenon it would become. Except,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1638,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-119198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-internet","9":"tag-technology","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}