Elon Musk, co-founder of OpenAI, argues that artificial intelligence will overtake human intelligences by 2025 because he believes the growth of AI is faster than the growth of any technology in history. The booming of AI was marked by the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, and it has affected many things, both in academia and in business.
Including Indonesia, which currently has several AI companies, such as kata.ai founded by Irzan Raditya, and WIR Group, whose chief sales and marketing officer is Gupta Sitorus.
It’s not just businesses that are welcoming AI; Indonesian youth are also getting involved in consuming AI services. High school students in Jakarta, for example, use AI to help them with their schoolwork, and some of them use AI to aid in their tests. For example, Rivaldo, a student at Al-Fajar Vocational School, admitted that he used AI to translate languages and make schedules
In response, on March 28, 2024, Youthlab held a podcast “Youth Dystopia” at Black Pond Tavern, featuring Irzan and Gupta as AI experts and youth from high school students, university students, and workers as panelists. Many aspects of AI were discussed during the podcast, but the primary focus was to determine whether Indonesian youth are ready to collaborate with AI.
AI; The inevitability of growing digital technology
Gupta said, “AI is an inevitability; there is currently no discourse to stop AI.”
Gupta compared AI to the internet in the 1990s, in which the internet affected many things from human life until today. AI in his view will repeat the same impact, but with faster progress. Therefore, he feels that Indonesia should play a role in this advancement in order to mitigate any negative impacts that may result from AI.
Saila, a student of SMAN 70 Jakarta (senior high school), admitted that she uses AI because she feels that it is a form of following technology. The majority of AI in the hands of young Indonesians is used to translate and complete assignments. ChatGPT is an AI tool that is often used by Indonesian youths.
Indonesian youth’s concerns about AI
AI as a tool follows Irzan’s saying, “even though AI is accessible, the tool is out there,” must be used wisely, in a way that what is produced from it can be responsible. Irzan explained that the information produced by AI is not always accurate, and often the data is hallucinated because there is no real-world case.
This is because AI works by prediction, so when it is trained to predict inaccurate information, the information it produces will also be inaccurate. Indeed, according to Irzan, the function of AI is not like a search engine such as Google, as AI cannot guarantee the accuracy of data as Google does by displaying the source and website that produced the information.
Therefore, when AI is used in the same way as Google, it will worsen the misinformation ecosystem formed by the internet.
Eiredith Aleea, a student of SMAN 47 Jakarta, admitted that she used to use ChatGPT and Google Gemini as preliminary references for information, which she then checked on Google. This action was confirmed by Irzan and Gupta, indicating that it is indeed necessary to double-check the information generated by AI. Irzan added that the use of AI to spread misinformation is what he fears about AI.
In addition to misinformation, the convenience of AI services is also a concern for youth. For instance, Aryasatya Kusuma, a psychology student at Paramadina University, admitted that he felt the presence of AI had made it too easy for him and his friends, resulting in a lack of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The same issue was also highlighted by Irzan, emphasizing that the challenge of AI lies in how humans can build critical thinking and creativity by using AI, rather than being undermined by it.
Lack of effort is also related to the lack of meaning, which presents another challenge of AI. Elon Musk said that with gigantic data and billions of data points, you can predict what AI will do. AI contains instructable numbers, which you can test when you run it. In such conditions, one of the challenges in the future is how we find the meaning of life when we have a magic genie that can do whatever we want.
Human beings will not be replaced by AI
The challenges, which are also considered drawbacks of AI, were followed by the question “will humans be replaced by AI?”. Irzan and Gupta agreed that AI will not replace humans. Irzan’s reasoning is that humans possess emotional intelligence and skills to communicate and negotiate. Meanwhile, Gupta’s reason is that humans will continue to be needed to verify whether what is produced by machine learning is justified and legitimate.
Garry Kasparov, world chess grandmaster, said, “Machines have calculations, we have understanding. Machines have instructions, we have purpose. There’s one thing only humans can do, that’s dream.” The limitation of AI is it can only learn from existing data, while humans can imagine things that don’t exist.
In addition, in a social context, Irzan said that AI cannot replace Indonesian society, which has a lot of local wisdom. The current ChatGPT technology still cannot translate concepts that are very local. This was confirmed by Mimu, a youth working in an advertising agency, through her experience creating an advertising campaign for Indonesian and global youth using ChatGPT.
Mimu said, “ChatGPT only provides solutions. When we think deeper about how to implement the campaign, it’s not good; it’s too broad, too expensive, people aren’t aware, and it’s not relevant to the target market in Indonesia. That’s why we, as a team, brainstormed together from experiences that have been done before, talked with other teams, so it was more about talking between individuals to match the relevance.”
AI will solve the problem, despite its controversies
AI is still not properly internalized in Indonesian youth, even among those living in big cities. Almera, a youth employee of biko group, used AI to summarize a book so he didn’t have to read the whole book. His friends responded to that negatively, such as saying “ah, you’re stupid bro, you’re lazy if you do that.”
In her perspective, what she did should be normal because AI as a technology is present to simplify human life. In addition, Almera’s friends and other youths still feel guilty about using AI, which according to Almera, they should embrace the use of AI as best they can.
For areas outside of big cities, the discussion of AI, according to Rian Fahardi, the initiator of the Distrik Berisik platform, is not something that is highlighted. He said, “After traveling from the tip of Sumatra to Eastern Indonesia, I realized and found that the issue of AI is not really prioritized, but always social, always legal, and always economic.” Irzan and Gupta agreed with this because equitable distribution of AI requires a quad helix collaboration between regulators, influencers, industry, and community.
However, they revealed that access for youth to learn AI is broadly open. Irzan said, “Now you have access to everything on your mobile phone, it’s just a matter of how we can explore, find reliable source information that gives us more knowledge, more information, and the willingness to adapt, the willingness to get our hands dirty.” Gupta added that the world’s top universities provide free training on AI that can be attended by anyone from anywhere.
It is clear that although the existence of AI is a necessity, the readiness to use and utilize it requires a lot of preparation. The government can engage in regulation, public figures can help spread education, and young people need to build critical thinking and the ability to check information. That way, the negative impact of the presence of AI will be minimized, and the benefits can be immense. As Elon Musk said, “AI will be a force for good thinking, but there’s not zore percent probability for going bad.”