Outsourcing critical thinking? Not a good idea!

The world around us is getting smarter: packaging, cars, houses, text and image processing programs – aka ChatGPT, Midjourney and the like. So is it time to sit back and relax while Artificial Intelligence (AI) is doing the work for us? Hardly; our brain's performance depends on constant training. And as fascinating as the computer-generated products might be, there are also downsides. After all, AI not only helps us to understand our world better; it can even be used to create alternative realities – see Deepfakes.

We should thus ask ourselves: Where does AI bring real advantages, and where should we be vigilant? Do we understand our new "toy" well enough to let it loose on the world without manual? No AI, no matter how smart, can take these considerations off our shoulders. So we would do well to keep our thinking organ fit in the future – despite all the conveniences that ChatGPT and Co. undoubtedly offer.

What does all this have to do with Empa? For one thing, we are developing autonomous robotic systems and the materials to build them, so that drones can take on various tasks that are hazardous for humans, such as remote infrastructure monitoring, environmental observation and firefighting – as the Focus section in the current issue illustrates. On the other hand, we regularly investigate the pros and cons of new technologies and explore the diverse interactions between humans and autonomous systems in the planned DroneHub in NEST.