Why making human-like artificial intelligence may be 'a trap': AI expert

As companies such as Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT) tussle to make the best artificial intelligence technology, one expert questioned whether they are going about it in the right way.

"Alan Turing famously proposed that the test for intelligence, what we later called the Turing Test, was 'how similar can an AI be to a human?' Trying to mimic humans has been kind of a goal of a lot of computer scientists ever since," Stanford Digital Economy Lab Director Erik Brynjolfsson said on Yahoo Finance Live (video above).

"Can we fool humans so you can't tell the difference?" he continued. "I think it's a very evocative goal, but it's also a trap. The reason it's a trap is that if we make AI that mimics humans, it actually destroys the value of human labor and it leads to more concentration of wealth and power."

There is, however, a better way forward, Brynjolfsson said.

"There's an alternative approach, which is making AI that augments humans, that allows us to do new things we never did before," he explained. "Don't try to mimic us but try to extend our capabilities. AI that does that is more likely to lead to a flourishing of wealth and more widely shared prosperity."

AI could unlock 'trillions of dollars of value'

Open AI-built ChatGPT took the world by storm when it was launched in November, reaching 1 million users within the first week of its launch.

"ChatGPT is an example of a new class of AI that is, I think, a really big breakthrough," Brynjolfsson said. "These are called foundation models. They include large language models that can write stories, poetry, email, ads, many other types of texts."

He added that from an economic standpoint, ChatGPT has kicked the door wide open. And the opportunity goes beyond text functions, as OpenAI's Dall-E has illustrated.

Other AI platforms "make videos, audio, even write computer code," he said. "These tools are having a set of implications that I think are bigger than even their developers expected initially. Trillions of dollars of value will be created."

However, as advances in generative AI have raced ahead, Brynjolfsson cautioned that society's understanding of the social and economic implications of the technology still needs to catch up.

"The next 10 years could be some of the best 10 years we've ever had or some of the worst," he said. "But we have to adapt our institutions. ... The rest of us in business, and economics, and social sciences need to get on the ball and think about how we can make sure our society is ready for these changes."

"If we do it right, I do think that we're going to have unprecedented productivity and growth, and we can have shared prosperity," Brynjolfsson added. "But it's far from inevitable."

Allie Garfinkle is a Senior Tech Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @agarfinks and on LinkedIn.

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