Who is afraid of artificial intelligence?

If you live in a big city and are connected to the internet, artificial intelligence (AI) is already part of your routine. AI’s omnipresence reflects how quickly it has been integrated into practically every aspect of society. From algorithms that personalise our online experiences to facial recognition systems, AI is quietly shaping the world around us.

Regulating technology companies and new social policies are essential, but complex. Discussions such as universal basic income gain strength as automation threatens jobs. While governments and corporations debate the subject, educating ourselves about the technologies shaping our future may be the best choice for ordinary citizens.

But what, after all, is artificial intelligence? At its core, it is the simulation of human intelligence processes by computer systems. This includes learning, reasoning and self-correction. Machine learning, the subset of AI responsible for the technological boom we are living through, uses statistical and probabilistic models to find patterns in large datasets, allowing systems to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed for a specific task.

Within this field, artificial neural networks stand out as a particularly powerful approach: inspired by the structure of the brain, they can model extremely complex relationships in data. An AI model, in this context, is a computer program trained on a large dataset to perform a specific task. In recent years we have seen the rise of multimodal models, able to handle text, images and other kinds of data at the same time.

Despite its advances, AI’s limitations include the possibility of generating incorrect or biased information, and not understanding context or causality the way humans do. Many of these flaws, however, are being overcome quickly, and telling content made by AIs apart from content made by humans is becoming harder and harder.

Hybrid creation, in which humans collaborate with AIs, is already a reality in many fields. Artists use AI to build apps without programming, while programmers explore their creative side. New professions are emerging, such as prompt engineers, who write instructions for AI, and curators, who refine what machines generate.

Soon, hybrid creation with humans steering AIs will be common, resulting in an explosion of content. The amount of information will be so vast that processing it will be a constant challenge. In that scenario, human work will concentrate on training and guiding AIs, creating a symbiosis between human and artificial intelligence.

For those who want to learn more about AI, there are countless resources available: online courses and scientific papers such as Attention Is All You Need and ImageNet Classification with Deep Convolutional Neural Networks, books such as The Master Algorithm and Life 3.0, and YouTube channels such as 3Blue1Brown and Two Minute Papers. On the philosophical questions, there are the classics Gödel, Escher, Bach, by Douglas Hofstadter, and Mind Children, by Hans Moravec.

It is important to stress that Brazil has significant potential in this field. Brazilian researchers and entrepreneurs are making important contributions, such as Apolinário Passos, an artist and machine learning engineer working with art, and Nina da Hora and Silvana Bahia, who have done remarkable work at the intersection of AI and ethics. Brazilian universities also have cutting-edge AI research groups, such as C4AI at the University of São Paulo (USP) and the Intelligent Systems Laboratory at Unicamp.

For Brazil to take full advantage of the opportunities AI offers, a public debate on the subject is crucial. This requires the participation not only of technical experts, but also of policymakers, business people, educators and citizens in general. One example is Bill No. 2,338, under debate in Congress, which aims to regulate the development of AI in Brazil by setting ethical guidelines and protecting citizens’ rights. In line with international trends such as the European Union’s AI Act, the bill classifies systems by risk and imposes stricter requirements on high-risk applications.

Regulating AI is a constantly evolving challenge. Public policy needs to be flexible enough to keep up with technological and social change. The media has an essential role in fostering dialogue between experts, legislators and citizens. This ongoing debate is essential to balance innovation with the protection of individual rights. As AI becomes ever more present in daily life, it is imperative that Brazilian society stays engaged in this debate, contributing to robust and balanced public policies that can maximise the benefits of AI while mitigating its potential risks.

Being afraid of AI makes sense, but seeking knowledge is the best response. It is already transforming our lives, and understanding it allows us not only to adapt, but also to shape its development for the benefit of society. The future of AI is being written now, and we all have a part in that story.