Can AI really be your friend? w/Jamie Bartlett
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi, this is Pod Save the UK. I'm Nish Kumar.
And I'm Coco Khan.
Hundreds of millions of people now talk to AI like chat GPT every single day. But most people have no idea how it works or what the dangers are.
What are the dangers of AI that most people don't understand?
Tech commentator Jamie Bartlett is here to enlighten us.
And we dig into the mailbag to answer all your burning questions. So look, artificial intelligence is undoubtedly one of the biggest and fastest technological changes in history, but most people still don't understand it or the risk it poses.
The tech companies behind services like ChatGPT, Claude and the rest say the potential for progress is worth the dangers. But is that really the case? Leading technology and AI writer Jamie Bartlett and former guest of this show believes it is. His new book, How to Talk to AI, delves into the machine to understand how AI works.
And with the rise of AI, have you noticed that more and more of the world feels, well, it feels fake. Jamie's got some thoughts about that too in a new podcast for the BBC. Everything is fake and nobody cares. That's what it's called, not just the feeling.
How does Jamie Bartlett's new book explain AI's strengths and weaknesses?
Yeah.
Jamie, you're the busiest man in tech, it seems. Welcome back.
Yeah, thank you. I guess I am. Just a busy month, that's all.
Everything is fake and nobody cares sounds like something I would have written when I was a very angsty 15-year-old on my exercise book.
It sounds like a Panic at the Disco tune, doesn't it? Anyway, that's a deep cut for the ageing millennials.
Listen, I'll say it. I was having one of the worst jobs in the Western world right now.
What is that? Writing about tech.
Oh, I see. Just because I have friends that work in the sector and the amount of people declaring themselves experts in this that know absolutely fucking nothing about it must be really frustrating for you.
Well... I'm not sure if anyone is a real expert in any of this because it's moving so fast. And I'm not sure that I am, I don't think I really do believe that the risk is worth it. I'm more worried about this than I am optimistic about where this is all going. And I mean, I was working on artificial intelligence back in 2010 on the same tech that has sort of created these chatbots. And I kind of thought it wasn't really going anywhere. I could never have imagined that these machines would turn up. So I sort of let it go. Stop thinking about it. And then like loads of us in 2020, late 2022, early 2023, the chat GPT turns up and it's like something's dropped out of the sky that's going to change everything.
And it's terrifying, sometimes exciting, but mostly quite scary for a lot of people. It's the fastest growing consumer app in history.
Mm-hmm.
Probably a billion people talk to a machine now at least once a week. You don't need to be a tech expert to know most people don't know what they're doing.
What unique perspective does Jamie have on the rise of AI?
There's some real basic things that I think everyone needs to understand about these chatbots that we're all using for everything from personal advice as a therapist, our exercise coach, for dietary advice, for our professional work, for our personal life. And no one really knows what they're doing. I'm trying to basically write a book for ordinary people who are suddenly using these things all the time and are slightly clueless about it.
I do want to talk to you about the substance of the book, but last week we talked about Matt Goodwin's book. Certainly there was criticism that a lot of it had been written using ChatGPT. There was ChatGPT in the few references at the back of the book. You know, he got given the nickname MattGPT. How much ChatGPT features in your book? Are we going to find that in all the references?
Yeah.
Well, I say at the end, I've got this little annex at the very end that says, I'm often asked how much did I use this in the writing. And it's weird because it's a book about it. And I run loads of tests using all these bots to show how they act and what they do and what they say. including very openly saying, I ran this chapter through it and asked for advice about how to improve it. And this is what it said.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–0:13
2
What are the dangers of AI that most people don't understand?
0:13–1:06
3
How does Jamie Bartlett's new book explain AI's strengths and weaknesses?
1:06–2:57
4
What unique perspective does Jamie have on the rise of AI?
2:57–5:00
5
What are the common misconceptions about AI and its capabilities?
5:00–9:19
6
How can AI be beneficial in personal and professional settings?
9:19–15:16
7
What role does regulation play in the future of AI technology?
15:16–19:50
8
How do conspiracy theories influence public perception of technology?
19:50–58:39
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from Pod Save the UK
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