HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — USF assistant professor John Licato says humans have never seen an advance like artificial intelligence.
He and others in the Advancing Machine and Human Reasoning Lab are working on how to get AI to understand language better.
He says sees two very different reactions from the public regarding the power of AI systems like Chat GPT.
“Unwarranted paranoia on one side. But also the exact extreme opposite, where some people think the technology is not going to affect my job at all. I don’t have to pay attention. I think both of those reactions are probably incorrect in some way,” said Licato.
Tech giants like Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsoft are working with the White House to develop artificial intelligence regulations.
That includes security and transparency with the public. And testing of their products before they are released.
“Something is necessary, but it’s very easy to see how they could overdo it and completely stifle innovation,” said Licato.
Larry Hall is a professor at USF’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
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He says some sort of regulation is important.
One example would be detectors or watermarks to let people know when AI creates something.
“There probably hasn’t been enough focus on that piece of making sure that what you see is real. Enough research on that. I think that’s probably something we really need to do. It doesn’t seem so exciting. But for society, it’s really important,” said Hall.
We’ve reported extensively on AI research, including the massive computer system at the University of Florida.
Other departments are working with AI to improve everything from farming to brain health.
At USF, they say they are ramping up their AI department with the hope of helping businesses, the government, and the military in our area.
“We’ve also got an increasing number of new hires on the faculty side that are bringing in some really innovative research that the community is just now starting to realize the benefit. Chat GPT really helped with that,” said Licato.
Some critics say that big tech companies still need to do more to show what data they use to train AI models.
President Biden is expected to sign an executive order for AI regulation eventually, but officials say final details are still being worked out.
