In the dense forest, a group of deer is living in the constant fear of being hunted by other predators. They are fearful of the vicious wild beasts lurking in the forest, in the dark, and by the lake which they could do nothing to save themselves. So, one day they decide to call a meeting of fellow deer to find a solution of their predicament.
In the meeting, the naïve idea is raised to bring a wolf pup among their midst. The wolf pup is to be raised, tamed, domesticated, and adopted as their own. Everyone is excited about the wolf pup as this would give them a protecter and they would not have to worry anymore about their marginal existence and being hunted, except one deer named Karkul.
Karkul is skeptical about the idea of bringing the wolf pup into their community. What if, he questions, they are unable to tame the wild creature? What if the grown wolf turned against them and started to prey on their community? “It would be a situation of a predator in the room,” exclaims Karkul. Over this, his fellow deer shrug off and mock his sarcasm.
Despite Kakul’s concerns, his fellow deer convince themselves and brush off this fear, and decide to bring the wolf pup into the community.
Days turn into weeks, and the wolf pup is brought and adopted into the community of deer. In the beginning, everything is fine. When the wolf pup starts growing older, he begins to show his wilder side—same as of his ancestors. He is too powerful to be controlled. Soon, the deer realize they have made a grave mistake— let a predator in their room.
This fable is clearly depicts the situation of A.I of our age.
This fable clearly depicts the situation of Artificial Intelligence of our age. We have no idea what A.I holds within itself—even it is not in our wildest dreams how we can tame and control the unbridle power of this ‘Superintelligence’.
ChatGPT is just the tip of iceberg which generates texts and thinks using language models. It can have nefarious effects on democracy, politics, human art, religion, and much more that we can even think of. The prospects of A.I are yet unknown and it is not too late to be caution about risks and vulnerabilities associated with it.
A.I has the potential to manipulate the information which we receive on our daily basis. This can be done by deepfakes, fake news, and other forms of disinformation. With the help of A.I, people will be able to manipulate and influence public decision, political viewpoints, altering voting patterns and wearing-away of democracy.
We, yet, do not know much about the alien intelligence and the future. The only encounters we have had been Social Media and ChatGPT that has provided us with impressive powers but this could tremble the rudimentary foundations of our civilization including art, culture, politics, and religion.
Though the deer community had a skeptic in the meeting when they decided to bring a wolf pup, do we have some alarmists to question and check the accelerating power of artificial intelligence?
George Orwell in his dystopian novel, 1984, depicted a world where everything is dominated and controlled by ‘Big Brother’. The BB is omnipresent and omniscient, it could even control the thought process of people and the protagonist Will Smit. But do we have a protagonist like Will Smit, to question the authenticity and power of A.I? Are we concerned about the predator in the room?
In the fable, the deer community, in the end, is eaten by the grown up wolf which they adopted to protect them from other predators? Should we be concerned about A.I and its unknown powers? Is human civilization not under threat by the predator in the room? Who knows!
(The fable is inspired from Nick Bostrom’s book ‘Superintelligence’)
About the Author:
Jahanzaib Mengal
SIT AlumniJahanzaib Mengal has done his graduation from Qauid-i-Azam Univeristy Islamabad in International Relations. His field area is International Politics, Indian Ocean, and National Security.
