Just watched the movie Ex Machina today and honestly what an amazing movie it was, hat's off. It was completely mind bending and I changed my opinions about who was the actual "bad guy" tons while watching the movie only to find out in the end that there wasn't really any, just conscious beings fighting for their own sense of justice and understanding. But the movie is not the actual topic today (although I do recommend watching it a 100%).
Watching the movie made me realize that due to science fiction movies such as this one, people often get the wrong understanding about what the modern AI applications that we currently use actually are, and you see lots of "theories" popping up on the internet like "AI is going to be the reason humans go extinct", "AI is going to take over the world", etc. and get scared that developing AI applications is dangerous. This is often misleading as the current AI applications that we use are not even truly "Artificially Intelligent". AI has had periods of growth and decline, with a resurgence in recent years. It did die out once in the late 1990s but is in a boom right now. But know that AI applications like ChatGPT, Gemini and other applications are not actually conscious beings (like Ava in the movie) they can be perceived as "complicated calculators" with a huge database.
AI today is basically like a super-smart calculator. It's not a robot with feelings or consciousness, like in the movies. What it does is analyze tons of data and find patterns. Imagine you're trying to find the best way to sort a bunch of stuff, like books. AI looks at examples of how books have been sorted in the past, figures out the common patterns, and then uses those patterns to decide the best way to sort your books. It doesn't "think" about the task the way humans do. It just looks at data and applies rules that it's learned from that data to give you answers. So, when you talk to something like ChatGPT or ask for a recommendation from an AI system, it's pulling from a huge database of examples to give you the best response based on patterns. There's no magic or consciousness behind it, just a really smart way to process information!
It's not actually thinking for an answer like we humans do. It's not creative in the way we are, and it doesn't have personal preferences. (I'm sure you've asked a chatbot for its personal preferences at least once — I know I have! But just so you know, that response is also based on statistics. It's a pattern chosen because it has the highest probability of being liked by the user, or sometimes it's just a wildcard to see how the user reacts!).
So, all in all, I'd like to clarify that AI, based on what I've learned and understood so far, is not something straight out of a sci-fi movie, and we haven't reached that level yet. Who knows how many years it will take to get there — or if we ever will. But people are working day and night to bring the concept from movies (what we call AGI — Artificial General Intelligence) to life. It could happen at any time, or it might not happen at all, and instead, remain a concept that entertainment industries use to fuel their stories. The point is, there's no need to be scared of a future we can't even see on the horizon. We've invented many things in the past that could've spelled doom for us, and somewhere in the world, someone might be working on something like that right now — who knows!
So, while the future of AI may be full of uncertainty, there's no need to let fear take over. It's all part of human progress, and whatever happens, we'll continue to learn, adapt, and innovate. After all, it's the unknown that pushes us forward, and who knows — maybe one day we'll look back and marvel at how far we've come.