Everyone is talking about how impressive AI is and how it's not only "writing" so much of what we're already reading, but affecting every industry, and soon every job. Just recently ChatGPT - launched by OpenAI in November - passed all three parts of the comprehensive US Medical Licensing Exam.
Forefront to the management of AI is the recognition that it's only as good as the data fed into it. This is quickly becoming a major concern as it propagates more and more "misinformation" regarding facts and data that exceed the political arena.
So, it shouldn't be surprising that recently hard rock miners were caught between humor and bafflement about how dumb AI's information was about mining. Not only did it get facts about copper producing countries and production levels wrong, the worst of it was that the images shown of miners were likely to have been taken from the era of the Great Depression!
Although the AI's data was wrong, it may have been correct about the perception of mining in the public's mind. Even though most mining companies have contemporary information on their websites concerning technologies, environment, climate, and sustainability, this tells us that we have a long way to go and a massive image problem. The importance of this should not be underestimated or "played down" because it affects attracting a new workforce, critical mineral and mining strategies, and national/international policies.
Mining products are valuable and essential to the wellbeing of everyone, and the biases of hidden programming sources should not only not be accepted as fact, but must be robustly replaced - even if it takes a Human to do that.
Sharon Prager
eConcepts Communications
www.econceptscommunications.com