We have this running theme that AI is going to help us fix the world. That AI is going to solve problems like climate change or bring the solution to cancer and things like that.
And we keep forgetting that ChatGPT doesn't actually do anything on its own.
ChatGPT or other similar chatbots or LLMs don't actually do anything. They only do what we ask them to do.
So when we say that AI is going to solve climate change, we seem to be thinking that, like this seems to be falling into a similar trap as before when we left things to God, where we said that...
God will solve this problem for us. God will take care of it. God will come to our rescue.
We seem to think that AI will solve these problems without us asking it to do so.
Because the problem is not that we don't have the solutions to these problems.
The problem is willingness.
We know right now what to do to avert a climate disaster.
We're not doing it.
So I have to assume that when people say that AI is going to solve a problem, what they really mean is that AI is going to find a way for us to continue to live as comfortably as we do without losing out on profits and also undo the damage created by global warming.
And I think it would be funny if it was not tragic — this complete surrender to an outside agent which is not even an outside agent by the way.
It is just a mysterious thing we have created.
