What the true impact of artificial intelligence (AI) is and soon will be remains a point of contention. Even among scientifically literate skeptics people tend to fall into decidedly different narratives. Also, when being interviewed I can almost guarantee now that I will be asked what I think about the impact of AI – will it help, will it hurt, is it real, is it a sham? The reason I think there is so much disagreement is because all of these things are true at the same time. Different attitudes toward AI are partly due to confirmation bias. Once you have an AI narrative, you can easily find support for that narrative. But also I think part of the reason is that what you see depends on where you look.

The “AI is mostly hype” narrative derives partly from the fact that the current AI applications are not necessarily fundamentally different than AI applications in the last few decades. The big difference, of course, is the large language models, which are built on a transformer technology. This allows for training on massive sets of unstructured data (like the internet), and to simulate human speech in a very realistic manner. But they are still narrow AI, without any true understanding of concepts. This is why they “hallucinate” and lie – they are generating probable patterns, not actually thinking about the world.

So you can make the argument that recent AI is nothing fundamentally new, the output is highly flawed, still brittle in many ways, and mostly just flashy toys and ways to steal the creative output of people (who are generating the actual content). Or, you can look at the same data and conclude that AI has made incredible strides and we are just seeing its true potential. Applications like this one, that transforms old stills into brief movies, give us a glimpse of a “black mirror” near future where amazing digital creations will become our everyday experience.

But also, I think the “AI is hype” narrative is looking at only part of the elephant. Forget the fancy videos and pictures, AI is transforming scientific research in many areas. I read dozens of science news press releases every week, and there is now a steady stream of news items about how using AI allowed researchers to perform months of research in hours, or accomplish tasks previously unattainable. The ability to find patterns in vast amounts of data is a perfect fit for genetics research, proteinomics, material science, neuroscience, astronomy, and other areas. AI is also poised to transform medical research and practice. The biggest problem for a modern clinician is the vast amount of data they need to deal with. It’s literally impossible to keep up in anything but a very narrow area, which is why so many clinicians specialize. But this causes a lack of generalists who play a critical role in patient care.

AI has already proven to be equal to or superior to human clinicians in reading medical scans, making diagnoses, and finding potential interactions, for example. This is mostly just using generic Chat-GPT type programs, but there are medical specific ones coming out. AI also is a perfect match for certain types of technology, such as robotics and brain-machine interface. For example, allowing users to control a robotic prosthetic limb is greatly improved, with training accelerated, using AI. AI apps can predict what the user wants to do, and can find patterns in nerve or muscle activity to correspond to the desired movement.

These are concrete and undeniable applications that pretty much destroy the  “AI is all hype” narrative. But – that does not mean that other proposed AI applications are not mostly hype. Most new technologies are accompanied by the snake oil peddlers hoping to cash in on the resulting hype and the general unfamiliarity of the public with the new technology. AI is also very much a tool looking for an application, and that will take time, to sort out what it does best, where it works and where it doesn’t. We have to keep in mind how fast this is all moving.

I am reminded of the early days of the web. One of my colleagues observed that the internet was going to go the way of CB radio – it was a fad without any real application that would soon fade. Many people shared a similar opinion – what was this all for, anyway? Meanwhile there was an internet-driven tech bubble that was literally mostly hype, and that soon burst. At the same time there were those who saw the potential of the internet and the web and landed on those applications for which it was best suited (and became billionaires). We cannot deny now that the web has transformed our society, the way we shop, the way we consume news and communicate, and the way we consume media, and spend a lot of our time (what are you doing right now?). The web was hype, and real, and caused harm, and is a great tool.

AI is the same, just at an earlier part of the curve. It is hype, but also a powerful tool. We are still sorting out what it works best for and where its true potential  lies. It is and will transform our world, and it will be for both good and for ill. So don’t believe all the hype, but ignore it at your peril. If it will be a net positive or negative for society depends on us – how we use it, how we support it, and how we regulate it. We basically failed to regulate social media and are now paying the price while scrambling to correct our mistakes. Probably the same thing will happen with AI, but there is an outside chance we may learn from our recent and very similar mistakes and get ahead of the curve. I wouldn’t hold my breath (certainly not in the current political environment), but crazier things have happened.

Like with any technology – it can be used for good or bad, and the more powerful it is the greater the potential benefit or harm. AI is the nuclear weapon of the digital world. I think the biggest legitimate concern is that it will become a powerful tool in the hands of authoritarian governments. AI could become an overwhelming tool of surveillance and oppression. Not thinking about this early in the game may be a mistake from which there is no recovery.