A Deep Dive into the Good and Bad of AI

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A Deep Dive into the Good and Bad of AI

It seems that everywhere you turn these days you are hearing something about AI. You might hear someone say “AI is the end of the world as we know it.” You might also hear someone else say “AI is going to be the best thing to happen in our lifetime.” Well, today I’m going to throw my own hat into the ring and talk about AI now, AI in the future, and how we might guard ourselves as we use it along the way.

Let’s start with AI now.

One of the most practical uses of AI today is as a “Super Google.” How many times have you wondered about the answer to something, and just googled it? How long has it been since the UT Vols won a national championship in baseball, you might ask? Google would tell you 24 hours. Just had to have a moment of gloating there. Back to our topic, AI is more intelligent than Google and it can give you more complex answers. The easiest way to experiment with this is through the use of Chat GPT. This is an app that you can download on your phone. Most will tell you that ChatGPT, which is made by the company, Open AI, is the most advanced, most practical, and most accessible version of Artificial Intelligence today. So, I did an experiment while I was on vacation last week. I wanted to see what all Chat GPT could tell me. I was looking at my oldest child who is 17 and I wondered, is he considered a millennial or part of Gen Z? So I asked ChatGPT. It spit out a thoughtful answer that gave me a range of when different people classify the cutoff between those two generations. As we were driving on the way home, I wondered, who owns interstates anyway? ChatGPT responds that they were built by the Federal government but owned and maintained by the state. That led me to wonder when the project for I-22 from Memphis to Birmingham was started. I was informed that it actually began in 1970 and wasn’t finished until 2016. Fascinating. How deep is the Tennessee Tom Bigbee waterway and what is its purpose, I ask Chat GPT. It told me all that I wanted to know (9 feet if you are wondering). Here are some other random questions I asked:

o Give me a brief history of the fall of Rome.

o What is the difference between a goal and an objective?

o Compare the 30 similarities between the 30 sayings of the wise in Proverbs with the 30 chapters of the wise by the Egyptian Amenhotep.

o Tell me about every instance in the Bible in which the phrase “fear of the Lord” is used.

It replied with solid answers to all of these questions. Intelligent ones. Sound like a souped-up Encyclopedia Britannica so far? It can do more than give you answers for random questions. It can generate content.

So, for my next experiment, I wanted to see what it could create. One of my extended family members thinks AI is going to take over the world, so I asked it to create a succinct defense of its own existence. It provided 3 reasons why AI won’t take over the world and closed with the following sentence. “AI is a tool designed to assist and augment human capabilities, operating within the bounds set by its creator and society.” Okay, how about a more creative challenge? I asked it to write a poem for my mother-in-law, and I told it some characteristics of her that I wanted it to incorporate. Here’s a couple of lines from the poem it created: “Spunky and lively, with zest for each day, she faces the world in her own unique way. Through trials and triumphs, her strength does shine, a beacon of courage, forever divine.”

Chat GPT can actually write essays for you. This is why papers in many universities and schools are actually submitted through a screening service that ensures AI didn’t write your paper for you.

Could Chat GPT write something more useful? I asked it to write an Artificial Intelligence policy for our bank. It created a pretty dog gone good one. Just to be clear, we didn’t use it, but we probably could have. Supposedly, it can write legal documents for you as well. So, I asked it to create a simple will for John Doe, having two children, Jane and Jim, to whom he wanted to leave 50% of his assets. It created one that looked pretty good. (Quick disclaimer) don’t use ChatGPT to create your legal documents. I highly recommend consulting the services of a legal professional. AI already does a whole lot more than what I’ve highlighted in this test drive. This is just a fraction of its current capability.

Let’s talk about AI in the future. One of the current capabilities of Chat GPT is to send data for Chat GPT to ingest and analyze. Theoretically, I could send a spreadsheet of data and it could analyze the data and spit out observations and opportunities in seconds, whereas it might take me hours to analyze. I have not done this because of privacy concerns. But AI in the future will be integrated into many of the third-party computer programs that you use and may be able to give you insights that currently take much longer to come up with. Want to know what demographic uses your services most? AI will tell you in seconds. Want to know what part of town most of your clients live in? Easy job for AI. Want to know where the greatest opportunities are to cross sell more of your products? AI doesn’t even have to blink to tell you this. In short, the process called data mining, which looks through mounds of data to give you insights, will be automated by artificial intelligence. So, the future of AI will be companies that you already use integrating it into their current framework. Apple, for example, says it will integrate ChatGPT into its Siri assistant. This will be called Apple Intelligence. Once this is the case, it will be able to analyze your habits, patterns, and contact, and be able to serve as a “Super assistant” capable very nearly of reading your mind. Think Jarvis in Ironman. You’ll be asking it to summarize articles and emails, and you might even use it to compose emails for you (or at least the bones of an email that you can then edit). You’ll be using it to record Teams and Zoom meetings and to provide the group with a summary of the conversation. A friend of mine recently introduced me to a service that does this, and I was amazed at the accuracy. It’s even better than having someone take minutes. For sports, It will be able to predict whether the next pitch from a Texas A&M batter will be a fast ball, whether a football coach has the tendency to call a run pay or pass play on second down, and the area of the floor you’ll want to isolate a basketball player’s jump shot. I’m one of those that believes AI will be a game changer, on par with the Internet itself. But there will be both good and bad that come from it.

Let’s close with how to guard ourselves against it.

– Recognize that life is a series of tradeoffs. For every benefit, there is a cost. Don’t be naïve in thinking that AI has no risks. It absolutely does, and with every iteration of AI, you’ll have to ask yourself, are the costs or risks worth the reward.

– Don’t submit any data to ChatGPT or any other AI that you don’t want exposed to the world. Privacy control is not there yet. We should already know that when we utilize technology, we give up privacy. But if you are responsible for guarding the privacy of other’s information, do not upload any of their data to AI without deeply vetting their protections for data. In some ways, it’s still the wild wild west for AI – so don’t get carried away and be careless with data.

– Watch out for deepfakes. Fraudsters are sure to utilize this technology to scam you and steal your money. Verify that voices are who you think they are and that images are what you think they are. Be skeptical on social media. Trust but verify. In the AI world to come, it will be easy to be fooled.

– Don’t completely dismiss the naysayers. AI can write computer code. At this time, there are debates as to whether AI could eventually rewrite its own code, overcoming the limitations of its programing and original intent. Could AI become truly autonomous and decide that the human race is a threat it wants to eliminate? This is certainly a possibility. I don’t think this will happen, because one thing that computers cannot do is exercise subjective judgment.

– Remember that there is a difference between data driven decisions and human judgement. AI may supplement human decision making. It might even replace certain jobs we currently pay people to do. But I don’t believe AI will replace people. We are made in the image of God. Machines are not. They may do human-like things, but they will never have a soul. And that’s what it means to be human. To have the subjective emotional and spiritual selves that only God himself can create. Machine Intelligence will go much further than I think most people think today. But I don’t think it goes so far as to render the human race unnecessary. The AI revolution will have fits and starts, but it is coming. We need to prepare ourselves for if/how we will interact with it.

AI may end up making banking easier. It might even make suggestions about decisions you can make regarding your finances, but it will not replace thoughtful and holistic financial advice. Our roles as bankers will change. We will do less processing of transactions in the future and focus more on conversations to help people make good decisions with their money. We are already doing this at Foundation Bank and McKenzie Banking Company. Start your financial conversation with us today by visiting our website at foundationbank.org. We also hope you’ll subscribe to this podcast to it in your favorite podcast app and share it on social media. This episode is not a recommendation specific to your own unique circumstances. Please consult your own advisor for guidance. Foundation Bank and MBC are a member FDIC and an equal housing lender, and until our next episode, God bless you.

-President Chad P. Wilson, CFP

Today’s episode of “Money Matters” was written and recorded by President Chad P. Wilson of Foundation Bank / McKenzie Banking Company on June 25, 2024. This episode does not constitute financial advice. Please consult a financial professional to discuss your specific needs. Any rates mentioned are subject to change and are accurate as of the recording date. Foundation Bank/MBC is an Equal Housing Lender, Member FDIC.