‘A lot of the fear’ about AI comes from a ‘misunderstanding’ of terms used to describe it

Futurist Mal Fletcher says “a lot of the fear” about artificial intelligence comes down to a “misunderstanding” of some of the terms used to describe it. For many people, their experience with artificial intelligence has been self-scanning groceries at the supermarket or playing around with ChatGPT at home, but advances in artificial intelligence are moving ahead at lightning speed. While some are excited about the possibilities, others, like former Google boss Eric Schmidt, have warned that AI could destroy the world. “I think a lot of the fear that we see about AI – we’re right to be cautious – but the fear that some people express is down to misunderstanding some of the terms we use,” Mr Fletcher told Sky News Australia host James Macpherson. “For example, AI refers, at least at this point in time, to narrow intelligence. It is good at carrying out complex single-level tasks, like winning a game of chess, but it’s not so good at dealing with multiple-level tasks simultaneously in a way that the brain does every day.