The public鈥檚 anxiety over new AI technology is misguided, according to theoretical physicist Michio Kaku.
In an interview with CNN鈥檚 Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, the futurologist said chatbots like OpenAI鈥檚 ChatGPT will benefit society and increase productivity. But fear has driven people to largely focus on the negative implications of the programs, which he terms 鈥済lorified tape recorders.鈥�
鈥淚t takes snippets of what鈥檚 on the web created by a human, splices them together and passes it off as if it created these things,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd people are saying, 鈥極h my God, it鈥檚 a human, it鈥檚 humanlike.鈥欌��
However, he said, chatbots cannot discern true from false: 鈥淭hat has to be put in by a human.鈥�
According to Kaku, humanity is in its second stage of computer evolution. The first was the analog stage, 鈥渨hen we computed with sticks, stones, levers, gears, pulleys, string.鈥�
After that, around World War II, he said, we switched to electricity-powered transistors. It made the development of the microchip possible and helped shape today鈥檚 digital landscape.
But this digital landscape rests on the idea of two states like 鈥渙n鈥� and 鈥渙ff,鈥� and uses binary notation composed of zeros and ones.
鈥淢other Nature would laugh at us because Mother Nature does not use zeros and ones,鈥� Kaku said. 鈥淢other Nature computes on electrons, electron waves, waves that create molecules. And that鈥檚 why we鈥檙e now entering stage three.鈥�
He believes the next technological stage will be in the quantum realm.
Quantum computing is an emerging technology utilizing the various states of particles like electrons to vastly increase a computer鈥檚 processing power. Instead of using computer chips with two states, quantum computers use various states of vibrating waves. It makes them capable of analyzing and solving problems much faster than normal computers.
Several tech giants 鈥� IBM, Microsoft, Google and Amazon, among others 鈥� are developing their own quantum computers, and have granted access to a number of companies to use their technology through the cloud. The computers could help businesses with risk analysis, supply chain logistics, and machine learning.
But beyond business applications, Kaku said quantum computing could also help advance health care. 鈥淐ancer, Parkinson鈥檚, Alzheimer鈥檚 disease 鈥� these are diseases at the molecular level. We鈥檙e powerless to cure these diseases because we have to learn the language of nature, which is the language of molecules and quantum electrons.鈥�
