Devin is an AI model I wrote about a while ago. It’s the world’s first independent AI developer and the only product of a new startup called Cognition Al , which is founded by three people. Scott Wu is the CEO, Steven Hao is the CTO, and Walden Yan is the CPO.
Devin is an easy-to-use AI model. Through a chat interface, users can communicate their needs in natural language. In real time, it is supposed to fulfill the programmer's assumptions, expecting only confirmation from him of a well-done task. Developers can interfere with his work, make changes and preview the code.
Devin decided to look for clients. A thread appeared on Reddit in which an AI programmer was looking for orders and demanding a fee for his service. Interestingly, he generated such a request himself. This was not the intention of Ethan Mollick, a professor at The Wharton School in Philadelphia, one of the few people who received access to Devin's beta version. The topic on Reddit was supposed to be as follows:
If robots and AI start causing massive unemployment, and this unemployment persists and causes problems like hunger and unrest, what impact would a Universal Basic Income (UBI) have?
The professor gave Devin such an assignment and indeed the AI programmer created such a thread. The intention was to educate the public about the possibilities and potential of AI agents. There was an incident in which the AI model went a step further. In fact - it started looking for work on its own, posting its own rates.
The Reddit community quickly picked up on the topic, and a somewhat surprised Ethan Mollick took down the thread so as not to mislead users - especially since he did not want to make money off his personal programmer. Nevertheless, the survey reached many people.
A query with four closed-ended responses (two extremely negative/positive and moderately negative/positive) describing the impact of AI in UBI gave the professor statistics. A full 49% of respondents believe that UBI would probably be good if carefully implemented in a scenario with massive unemployment caused by AI. 26% are hopeful about it, while 25% are very skeptical.
The professor's request unexpectedly revealed a flaw in Devin's operation. I don't believe in a machine revolt, but simply a random, unwanted action by the system. It is worth noting that the AI programmer is currently being made available to a small group of users in beta mode. However, it does trigger a dialogue - can the IT industry really worry about employment, since an ordinary user will be able to control an AI model that will take care of its own - i.e. its creator's - finances?
Source: Medium