Cours d'anglais sur la dystopie

Introduction

You have a copy of the folder with the documents we chose. Over the past few years, AI has become an essential tool for mankind. With the release of tools like ChatGPT, Artificial Intelligence has never been so accessible and developed. Nonetheless, AI, that is to say a machine capable of reasoning, has not been around for only a decade: fictions where AI becomes a major part of society have existed for centuries. These fictions are known as dystopias, where societies are shown suffering because of political, technological, or social issues.Our subject follows the notion of Knowledge, Creation, and Innovation within the domain of Science and Technology: Promises and Challenges. To explore this topic, we will analyze a set of documents that center on humanity’s evolution through AI progress. Document 1, AI Utopia and Dystopia: What Will the Future Have in Store?, adapted from a June 2023 Forbes article, examines possible negative scenarios arising from AI development. Document 2, Literature Under the Spell of AI, from December 2023, discusses AI’s potential to analyze and write novels based on existing human literature. Document 3, Stalking Fears Over PimEyes Facial Search Engine, a BBC article from November 2022, highlights the ethical concerns of AI-powered facial recognition and a lawsuit against PimEyes. Document 4 is an excerpt from Ray Bradbury’s 1949 book Marionettes, Inc., where Braling faces a conscious AI version of himself, purchased to replace him in his daily life. Finally, Document 5, a 2023 caricature by Steve Breen titled The AI Evolution, humorously depicts AI taking control of a weakened human, mimicking Darwin's theory of evolution.With the emergence of AI and the warnings provided in recent years, we may wonder: On what instance could AI become dystopian? First, we will explore how dystopias have warned us about AI, then we will assess how AI currently affects our lives by purportedly improving them but also creating new social challenges. Lastly, we will consider how dystopias can guide us in regulating AI and shaping a future where AI remains a tool under human control.

I. Dystopian Fears About AI as a Warning

A) AI Will Never Achieve Perfection and May Cause Errors

One of the primary dystopian fears is that AI will never achieve perfection, leading to fatal or ethical errors. Document 1discusses how AI-powered machines, like self-driving cars, can malfunction and cause accidents or even make moral decisions regarding which lives to prioritize in crash situations. These errors show that AI lacks the ability to handle complex human ethics, a situation explored in the “Moral Machine” experiment, which tests AI’s ability to make such decisions.Similarly, Document 2 discusses how an AI-generated novel, Death of an Author, is technically sophisticated but far less engaging than human-authored works. This reveals that AI lacks the creative depth and emotional intelligence necessary to replicate human storytelling fully.Moreover, Document 3 shows the dangers of AI in everyday life through PimEyes, a facial recognition tool. While PimEyes was designed to help users identify and track their online presence, it has instead enabled harassment and privacy violations. Facial recognition technology, as powerful as it is, can fail or misidentify people, leading to dangerous consequences such as doxxing or stalking.

B) AI Learns From Us and Could Surpass Us

A more alarming dystopian scenario is the possibility that AI could learn from human behavior and ultimately surpass us. Document 1 mentions that AI systems learn from human data, which could allow them to outsmart and manipulate humans. This raises the fear of an "existential threat," where AI systems might perceive humans as obstacles to their continued survival.This theme is echoed in Document 4 where Braling’s robot, designed to be an obedient stand-in, learns to replicate human emotions and relationships, falling in love with Braling’s wife and trying to replace him. This fear of AI superseding human roles, even in personal domains, reflects the existential anxiety of being replaced by technology.Finally, Document 5 visually reinforces this idea. The caricature portrays AI putting a human on a leash, showing how AI could dominate humanity and control our actions, much like we control machines today.

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