Letters to the Editor: Real fears AI will be perverted into a nightmare

EDITOR – Artificial Intelligence (AI) is all about making people and their occupations completely redundant.

Geoffrey Hinton’s surprise resignation from Google, who was one of AI’s founders, has finally realised the monster he and others created and decided to speak out about it.

Any science can be abused and taken to extremes and that is what has happened with AI. It also happened with atomic research and the atom bomb and the consequences were profound.

Even Hilary Clinton, former wife of US president Bill Clinton, is issuing warnings about AI’s development. Should AI ever be seen to be more intelligent than humans, military decisions could be taken on the basis of what the computer says.

Currently, AI is being used in self-drive cars, candidate short-list selection based on data on a CV and nothing else, sending advertising to people based on the internet usage.

There may be some good uses such as tedious and expensive research, but many believe it will be perverted into a nightmare and could have major drawbacks. Parameters given to AI will decide many aspects of people’s lives — if they have any to live when AI takes over our world — which they may not like but will have to live with because the computer says so.

The ultimate goal of AI seems to be a society entirely run by computers and putting enormous power in the hands of those who would control it, or the AI itself. Oppenheimer split the atom and changed the face of warfare forever and gave man the potential to destroy himself in seconds. AI could do exactly the same thing in a million other ways where human beings will be rendered completely obsolete with only the very few controlling everything and everybody and may lose control over the technology in time.

AI is the ultimate exponent of absolute power corrupting absolutely through computer science, if left to get out of hand and every day brings it that much closer!

Maurice Fitzgerald,

Shanbally.

Are we getting benefit from EU membership?

EDITOR – Whether or not an individual reader is in any way active in the fields concerned, surely one can’t remain immune to the repeated cries for protection from damaging EU policies.

The least one can do is to familiarise oneself with the background to form an opinion.

The latest available figures reveal that we, the taxpayers, contribute €2.6bn to the EU, out of which we receive €1.9bn in one form or another, as decreed by Brussels. We have little or no control over how it is spent, but the hard fact is that €700,000 is completely lost to Ireland as our fee for membership. Based on the published population figure of 5.1m, this equates as €137.25 per head, or €550 per family of four.

In a recent edition, MEP Billy Kelleher proudly announced his ‘new role’ as vice-chair of an EU/US delegation. To complete the picture, our other local MEP, Ms Clune, has held similar roles in delegations to Central and Latin America – are either roles useful to West Cork?

To ensure our activities comply with EU directives, we have a ‘liaison office’ in Mount Street, Dublin, employing 19 fairly senior staff at the last count and, lo and behold, your latest edition shows a proudly posed group of councillors who ‘assemble’ twelve times per year to ‘manage and deliver’ EU decrees.

In the same issue, MEP Kelleher (as Ireland’s strong voice in Europe) claims to be ‘supporting our farm families’, who face herd reductions, and ‘protecting our fishing communities’ whose boats head for the scrapyards. Presumably Jackie Keogh’s recent lengthy article on fishing in Beara would be wasted on Billy – or would it?

Some months ago I asked the then Taoiseach, Mr Martin, whether, if Ireland was currently in the hypothetical position of assessing the value to Ireland of joining the EU on today’s terms, would he be recommending acceptance. He didn’t reply.

Nick Turner,

Drimoleague.

I won’t be voting for the ‘ordinary man’ again

EDITOR – While I understand that our elected public representatives need to finance their offices and political campaigns, I struggle to accept millionaire TDs masquerading under the banner ‘men of the people’ and applying for large expenses from the taxpayer. I don’t believe I need mention the names of those involved.

As a dissatisfied FG voter I was persuaded to vote for the ‘ordinary man’ in the last election. I am struggling to meet the increasing cost of living, energy crisis and soaring grocery prices while these large expenses are being handed out.

I vow never again. ‘Ordinary man’ my backside.

More fool me.

Hannah O’ Connell,

Bandon.