GenAI - A Case of Running with the Hare and Hunting with the Hounds?

By: Subham Sarkar

Image Credit: Christopher Furlong

 “Computers”, “Internet” and “Cloud” have undoubtedly been the three biggest inventions that have disrupted the technology landscape globally in the past few decades, thereby transforming human lives from a “physical” world to a “digital” world.

 Another striking similarity amongst all these three was when each of these got introduced, global debates invariably ensued about whether they are good or are they bad! But finally, they were destined to be here to stay for good, fully entwined with our daily lives and still “mostly” under human control. The initial fear of job losses, privacy & security concerns, etc. were out-weighed by the overall benefits and the safeguards put in place like cyber security, data protection legislations, etc.

 However, in the recent years there has come another such super disruptor – “Artificial Intelligence” (AI). The sheer name itself said it all, resulting in debates around fear of job losses, to privacy & security concerns, to even religion! (are we trying to become God?). Further by feeding it more and more data related to human knowledge, experiences, intelligence, emotions, behavioural patterns, contextual learnings, etc. while esoterically naming these inputs as “Large Language Models” (LLMs), we are all going gaga about “Generative AI” (GenAI) with its “Deep Learning” capabilities.

 Predictably, there are also voices that are getting louder around whether we are trying to bite more than we can chew and creating a Frankenstein? The rising incidents of “deepfakes” in the recent past wrt celebrities globally and the “layoffs” news that are being announced by the tech and ‘born in the cloud’ companies clearly shows that perhaps this time humans are not yet fully in control of what we are unleashing? Even, major governments worldwide and big tech companies are all feeling uncomfortable and everyone seems to be talking of setting up parallel guardrails, but nothing concrete has come out yet. Only time will tell.

 This sets the context for which of these 2 below phrases is more apt for a debate on GenAI?

 1)     “Run with the hare and hunt with the hounds” is a phrase meaning try to support both sides of an argument/conflict/dispute.

 OR

 2)     “Hold with the hare and run with the hounds” is a phrase meaning to deceitfully purport to remain on good terms with both sides in a conflict.

 This also leads us to remember the moral of 'The Hound and the Hare' fable by Aesop (circa 600BC) - A Hound scared and chased a Hare but gave up after some distance. Asked why, the Hound cited motivation: Hound ran for supper, Hare ran for life. Motivation is everything.

 Write off humans at your own peril! Whenever there is a challenge or a problem thrown at humans, we always seem to come up with a workable solution! COVID-19 pandemic rings a bell?

 A Blog Series on New & Emerging Technologies

Dated:  Feb 7, 2024

Author: Subham Sarkar (https://www.linkedin.com/in/subham-sarkar-519b7114/), Chief Strategy Officer, Netlabs Global IT Services, www.netlabsglobal.com

Disclaimer: The contents of this article are purely written in an individual capacity based on the personal opinions of the author. Data sources and image credits have been cited duly as and where applicable.

 

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