Can AI be trusted?
We heard from John Paul Michael who is Deputy Director of Digital Safety at the Department of Internal Affairs – a lot of capital letters to start with. John started by explaining how artificial intelligence – known by us all as AI ̶ is being used generally in the world and how it is changing every day. It can be very useful in a wide variety of ways. One example John gave was how AI has been used to decipher ancient scrolls from Pompeii another was how in healthcare it is used to identify rare diseases which may not otherwise be detected.
In the work John does, AI is used for image analysis to help identify locations and victims involved in child exploitation. On of the time-saving processes is in literature reviews when looking at other child exploitation cases, work which would normally take two weeks can be carried out in a day week. Unfortunately, AI does not take the place of critical thinking, or perhaps that is fortunately. Of course, AI can also be used by ‘bad’ people.
There were lots of questions about us becoming over-reliant on AI or being able to trust it. In addition, could the younger generation lose the ability to apply critical thinking because they rely too much on AI? If you were not there, you will not know the answers, and if you were there, you will probably be worried by them.