There will be no third AI Winter, but I think that we will possibly soon fall into an AI Depression.
Let me give you some possible reasons for the coming depression:
▶ The AI-Control-Problem (still not sufficiently solved)
▶ Still big concerns about privacy, ethical issues, and security
▶ No uniform / sluggish regulation and laws.
▶ The reality and expectations of AI diverge significantly; AI is overhyped.
▶ Ethical/psychological implications are not yet clear; much is still a theory and not proven in practice.
▶ Philosophical, sociological and psychological, human-science studies/approaches are still not appreciated enough.
▶ The hype is followed by sobriety (AI is still an expert system)
▶ Many AI systems are still inefficient and need a lot of energy or have to be implemented complicatedly. We need different, more efficient approaches.
▶ Data awareness has not yet developed sufficiently across the world.
▶ Still too little usable (real-time) data is generated. The significant expansion of Edge/IoT/5G devices and infrastructures will continue for a while.
▶ AI is dominated by a few Big-Techs (AI becomes more and more a power instrument). This could have a negative effect on AI.
Closing thoughts:
We need more people with strong computational statistics and machine learning skills who do not come from computer science or physics backgrounds but human-, social-, life- or environmental sciences. This would immensely enrich and benefit the development of AI.
The question will not be whether AI will one day be so advanced that it will be on the same level as human intelligence or far more. The question will be whether or not we humans can evolve with AI. The AI is driven from all sides by brilliant people to higher and higher performances while humankind feels treading water. We have to develop significantly in philosophical, ethical, psychological, and sociological terms and fuse them into the rapid technological developments if we do not want to experience any unpleasant surprises in the future.
The text is an excerpt from my book “THE AI THOUGHT BOOK”