Quick Edit| O for Omni, Also for Oust 

Greg Brockman posted a video on X on May 13, introducing to the world GPT-4o. Open AI’s latest model 4o can comprehend and make sense of activities unfolding in real time. The video is a delight to watch.

An AI narrates real time information to his fellow AI who is intrigued and wants to know more about what is transpiring in the room.

He reads the emotions and intentions of a human with elan, all through the lens of a camera and narrates it to her. He also responds to Brockman’s request to string the lyrics and sing a song about the situation. 

The spotlight is on Brockman and 4o tries to be helpful to O to understand the scene. At least, that’s his stated intention. The word help is operative here. “The human is not being cut out by AI. If anything, the human agency is being amplified...,” Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive, Microsoft told a leading Indian daily.

That is the narrative we are going with for now but then again with all the “restructuring” across sectors and reallocation of resources to develop generative AI technologies leading to massive layoffs has been quite alarming.  

Apple’s EV car project is a case in point. “The tinsmith forgot to give me a heart,” said Tin Man in Wizard of Oz. 4o Gen AI sounds like it is all heart but here is hoping that we are not generating emotions at the cost of brains. AI could create havoc in a labour-intensive country such as ours.

The threat is real and that is why what is most crucial at this point in time is to not simply celebrate what opportunities it brings but also assess its risks. AI can compound existing inequalities in an already skewed world. Infact in no other domain is an assessment of ethics more critical than here. Gen AIs appropriating human emotions, intelligence and language may sound helpful in an increasingly lonely world but the price to pay may just be too high, if it goes unchecked. Let O not oust us yet.