The rapid development of artificial intelligence technology may threaten the future of humanity, according to the opinion of the majority in the survey conducted by the American news agency “Reuters” and the public opinion research company “Ipsos”. It shows that more than two-thirds of Americans are worried about the negative effects of artificial intelligence, and 61% of respondents believe it could threaten civilization. The European Union sees both advantages and risks in the victory march of artificial intelligence, and on March 14, the European Parliament voted for a legislative act – a regulation in which risk levels are determined and a part of the methods of using artificial intelligence will be prohibited or limited. Artificial intelligence technologies are developing rapidly and largely spontaneously. Will it be possible to write proper laws down there to regulate all this?
The European Union is very good at regulating everything. Of course, it is not at all simple. I think regulation is necessary, but at the moment no one really has an understanding of where these technologies will lead.
In terms of importance, artificial intelligence is right there on the same level as the steam engine, with electricity, with the radio, with the transistor. It’s not a boom of the moment where everyone is running after the new tulip bulbs. The thing is real, the product is real, but I am definitely not brave enough to say its impact on humanity, on the economy. And I don’t think anyone in the world can predict where it will lead.
It is clear that many jobs, many positions will change, disappear and many others will take their place. It is similar to New York, where at the beginning of the 20th century there were hundreds of thousands of horse-drawn carriages and the biggest technological problem was to collect horse manure. And there were hundreds of thousands of lifters. The man lived his whole life in this profession – driving elevators between floors. But then at one point it disappeared.
I think the same thing will happen with computer programs, with artificial intelligence. It is quite clear that it will catch various types of “white-collar workers” – accountants, lawyers, translators, officials, analysts. There will be things where procedures and processes will be fairly easy to put into a computer. Journalists will also be among the threatened professions.
But a person will still have to assess whether there are any errors in the analysis or translation. The translation programs are already excellent, but still one has to see if there are some misunderstandings and pranks written there…
A translator, analyst or journalist who knows how to work with these tools well will outcompete a colleague who does not know how to work with these tools. Computers and artificial intelligence should be viewed as tools. This tool will most often not replace a person, but a person who knows how to work with these tools will outcompete those working in the same profession who do not.
There are also really scary things – no human can beat a computer program in chess anymore…
So what? What of it? A person cannot outrun a car, and a bicycle is also faster. These are things you don’t need to be afraid of – it’s normal. Any technology, any device is an extender of human capabilities.
As artificial intelligence models develop, server capacity increases, and the number of companies offering artificial intelligence services increases, traditional tools such as Google translator are losing their monopoly status. More and more small companies are able to access the capabilities that allow them to compete with large companies.
These technologies create misery for some because they take away jobs, while for others they create new jobs, new opportunities, new businesses. It should be seen as a part of evolution. There have always been luddites who want to break the loom, because forever has been knitting with needles. This is another loom, and it should be looked at that way.
Girts Ozoliņš/MN
Five associations – Latvian Electrical Engineering and Electronics Industry Association (LETERA), Mechanical Engineering and Metalworking Industry Association (MASOC), Latvian Information and Communication Technology Association (LIKTA), Latvian Chemical and Pharmaceutical Entrepreneurs Association (LAĶIFA) and Latvian Wood Industry Federation (LKF) – are have founded a joint organization – the Latvian Industry Development Confederation (LIAK). You have been elected president of LIAK. What do you want to achieve, what are the aims of the confederation?
LIAK is the “Confederation of Non-Edible Manufacturers”. All the big producer associations have been around for almost 30 years. We have known each other for a long time.
There are also two large organizations representing entrepreneurs – the Confederation of Latvian Employers (LDDK) and the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LTRK). They have their own specificity. LTRK has put a lot of emphasis on the mass of participants, on the fact that there are a lot of small companies from the regions in the chamber, whether you like it or not, the emphasis is on the small business layer that is represented. LDDK is a large company, and this organization is a social partner of the government – a large part of this organization’s activity is communication with the state and trade unions. On the other hand, things like the defense industry, which has become very relevant at the moment, are a bit outside the focus of these two organizations. Also, education, science, various programs for the development of new products are a bit outside their focus. And also practical matters of the development of manufacturing companies – energy, construction, construction regulations. The new confederation LIAK focuses on three things – on defense, education and science and practical matters of production development.
In this confederation, the members are only associations, which means that we can very quickly agree on an opinion and develop a common position and start with it on various issues. Our colleagues LDDK and LTRK spend much more time on this.
We do not try to compete with them, take away work, but we fill the niches that these organizations do not deal with.
Will your organization seek to act as an industry lobby?
Of course. We participate in the discussion and development of the regulatory acts that apply to our industry. Currently, the most relevant is the defense industry law, which is being discussed in the Saeima. In this respect, we are no different from any other organization representing entrepreneurs.
We also do such things as industry promotion, mutual learning, communication with customers and other markets and, of course, lobbying.
Girts Ozoliņš/MN
Your “Facebook” or “Meta” account is decorated with the statement of Professor Richard Feynman: “No amount of faith can make something a fact.” Nature does not care about your faith.” Posters with portraits of wise people and their quotes are also in your office. Why?
It’s a tradition of mine that every once in a while I try to find an interesting quote by an interesting person. We also make these quotes as posters, put them on the wall in our office and give them as gifts to other colleagues. Feynman and that about faith and nature was a reaction to covid, to all those devilish anti-vaxxers. It was not only a Latvian phenomenon, but all over the world, many politicians, driven by nefarious motives, dumbed down people. Anti-vaxxers at the political level are a huge scourge. But no matter how loudly the politician tells something from the pulpit, nature does not listen – there are statistics, the spread of the virus, which is not affected by opinions. That’s about it.
There are millions of people on the “green course” who believe that climate change is caused by human activity. Or do you think so?
Here, however, I would like to agree with the majority of climate scientists who say that global warming is man-made – it was caused by carbon dioxide emissions, which mankind has created by burning millions of years of accumulated hydrocarbon reserves. Man burns oil, man burns coal. There is no scientific disagreement that climate change is man-made. Disagreements or concerns have been created to the greatest extent by the oil industry since the 70s of the last century. It has been in various combinations with politicians of various hues.
You advertise a device on social networks that can be used to monitor air purity – the content of carbon dioxide in the air. It can be connected to a phone or computer and see the dynamics of air cleanliness in time. What is this device?
It is a product of the company “SAF Tehnika”, it is a very accurate monitor, it is not “snake oil”. Interest in such monitors was “struck” by a pandemic at one time.
People spend most of their time indoors. A person exhales carbon dioxide and then inhales it again.
The covid and flu viruses are transmitted from one person to another through the air. If there are poorly ventilated rooms, then there is a very high chance of getting sick. It’s like cholera that was waterborne. One with cholera had pooped in the water and another was drinking it. Humanity dealt with cholera epidemics when it understood these connections and provided clean drinking water. And not by developing a cure for cholera. To a very large extent, it is the same with covid – a big contribution can be made by determining that air cleanliness standards should be set in places where many people gather. Schools come first, of course, but any other place where a lot of people gather is just as important. If cinemas, shops, concerts are in well-ventilated spaces, the chances of getting sick are much smaller. There are countries that are very serious about it, and there are countries that are better off pretending not to know anything about it.
Still with CO2 it is such a thing that at high concentration of this substance, human cognitive abilities decrease.
Are you sleepy?
Yes, a person becomes dazed, sleep comes. Ministries often have boring presentations that make people sleepy. It’s not just because of boredom, which it tends to be, but because a person has been poisoned by breathing in CO2.
A product of the Latvian engineering company that monitors air quality and warns if CO. can be compared here2 the concentration is too high.
What other electronic products are produced in Latvia by the companies that have gathered in the LETERA association?
We produce a lot of good things. LETERA gathers around a hundred companies that produce everything – robots, musical instruments, loudspeakers, microphones, sound amplifiers, synthesizers, various radiation measuring equipment, money and document checking equipment, communication technologies, sensors. Latvia produces a lot, and they are very modern things. The public knows very little about it.
Still, many companies of various industries continue to cooperate with Russian and Belarusian companies. The craziest recent news is with manganese ore going to Russia via Latvia in transit. What to do with it?
This is deeply wrong, dangerous to national security, and moral hogwash.
Many of the LETERA companies left the Russian market in the first week of the war, suffering more or less losses. But it is the morally right thing to do.
Microchips, semiconductors – these are things that can be used in the military, and it is hyper-dangerous. In December of last year, information came out that LETERA members JSC “RD Alfa Mikroelektronikas departaments” and JSC “Alfa RPAR” supplied their products for the military needs of Russia. Later, however, such news was not confirmed.
Absolutely nothing was confirmed there. In addition, these companies do not produce products that can be used in the manufacture of missiles, their products have neither military nor dual use, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, these companies do not export chips to Russia. And these companies strongly condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
There was a buzz around these companies, but it turned out to be completely unfounded. It’s one thing to follow the noise, but at the same time you can see what is being imported and exported by rail. Understanding that it is not prohibited at the European Union level and that it brings in a lot of money, it should be the state’s task to shut down such a business.
The European Union bans something bit by bit all the time, as if picking off a dog’s tail bit by bit – currently there is already the 14th EU sanctions package against Russia. Maybe it encourages entrepreneurs to take advantage of opportunities to trade in non-sanctioned goods while they still can?
Yes, there is a constant expansion of sanctions with something else and something else. I assume that after some time, maybe there will be the 35th package of sanctions as well…
Be the first to find out what interesting has happened in Latvia and the world by joining us on the Telegram or Whatsapp channel
