Seattle is an artificial intelligence hub in a rapidly changing field

People of a certain age learned everything they think they should know about artificial intelligence from the Terminator movies. In them, the United States handed control over our nuclear forces to an advanced computer called Skynet.

In a famous line, “Skynet begins to learn rapidly and eventually becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m., EDT, on Aug. 29, 1997.” Its panicked human minders try to shut the system down, but it defends itself by launching a full nuclear strike against Russia, which retaliates, and “the machines” appear to win as much of humanity is wiped out.

The movies are masterpieces of science fiction (especially “T2”), but artificial intelligence is very real and important to Seattle, which has been a player in AI development.

As the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton lays it out, “Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of machines to perform tasks that would normally require human intelligence. These new machine capabilities both inspire and unnerve: trucks that drive themselves, computer programs that develop drug therapies, software that writes news articles and composes music.”

People use AI for such everyday tasks as facial recognition on their smartphones and using search engines. Health care, financial services, food delivery — AI is ubiquitous. It’s capable of being engaged on the template on which I’m writing this column. AI could write a version of this column.

Indeed, Sports Illustrated — once the home of some of America’s finest writers — was recently caught in a scandal in which it was accused of using AI to generate stories with fake human bylines. (Sports Illustrated denied that the stories themselves were written by an artificial intelligence tool, according to The Associated Press.)

No wonder people are ambivalent and confused about AI.

According to a Pew Research Center survey late this past year, 27% of respondents said they interacted with AI “at least several times a day.” Another 28% said they use it “about once a day or several times a week.” On the other hand, 44% of respondents said they don’t regularly interact with artificial intelligence.

AI most recently burst into public view with the saga of the firing and sudden rehiring of Sam Altman of OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT. The latter is a chatbot, a software program designed to simulate human conversation.

The Seattle area is a major AI center.

For example, Microsoft quickly snapped up Altman for its AI efforts but offered no resistance I’m aware of to him returning to OpenAI, once a boardroom coup reinstated him. No wonder: Microsoft is a major OpenAI investor.

Microsoft is spending more than $27 billion annually on research and development, on top of a stake of up to $13 billion in OpenAI. The company expects to see meaningful results from its AI investments beginning next year.

Amazon recently laid off hundreds of employees in its Alexa voice-assistant unit so it could beef up its AI capabilities. Earlier this year, the company invested $4 billion on an artificial intelligence startup headquartered in San Francisco.

Last month, Amazon created its own chatbot called Q to better compete against OpenAI, Microsoft and Google. “We think Q has the potential to become a work companion for millions and millions of people in their work life,” Adam Selipsky, chief executive of Amazon Web Services, told The New York Times.

To be sure, it lacks the clout of Silicon Valley and startups are lagging, as the tech blog GeekWire recently pointed out. However, “Seattle ranks second nationally in regard to AI talent density, which measures how many workers have an AI specialty, according to data from Seattle-based recruiting platform SeekOut.”

Artificial intelligence poses a serious threat to some jobs. For example, Arizona allows trucks driven by AI rather than humans. Truck driving is among the largest sources of employment in the United States. It may be true that AI will create as many jobs as it disrupts, but not for human truck drivers.

The technology is also reshaping the economy. ChatGPT was trained on a supercomputer by the Silicon Valley company Nvidia. As The New Yorker magazine reported, earlier this year “Nvidia was the sixth most valuable corporation on earth, worth more than Walmart and ExxonMobil combined.”

AI is so potent that President Joe Biden issued an executive order to ensure a “safe, secure, and trustworthy development and use of artificial intelligence.” The order sets new standards for artificial intelligence safety and security. It provides for new privacy provisions, along with other measures.

Rather like many of the financial plays that went bad in 2008, helping bring on the Great Recession, AI is unregulated.

No wonder the Pew survey found, “the public remains cautious about the impact artificial intelligence is having on American life: Just 15% say they are more excited than concerned about the increasing use of AI in daily life, compared with 38% who are more concerned than excited; 46% express an equal mix of concern and excitement.”

And yes, AI is being used by the Pentagon for tasks ranging from piloting surveillance drones to tracking soldiers’ fitness and checking aircraft maintenance.

And nukes?

Earlier this year, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks wrote in Politico: “We also draw a bright line when it comes to nuclear weapons. The policy of the United States is to maintain a human ‘in the loop’ for all actions critical to informing and executing decisions by the president to initiate and terminate the use of nuclear weapons.”

So perhaps we can avoid Judgment Day, as the Terminator franchise calls the nuclear war started by the fictional Skynet, developed by a fictional Silicon Valley company.

For now, at least.