We continue to learn about science fiction writers of the Rosatom prize «The Future Story». Nikolai Pronev received a special nomination «For a letter trace in the digital era» — with a story about sad robots «A Dream in the Digital Night». Nikolai is not a random person in the prize, he is known. At the end of 2018, a teacher of Russian language and literature Nikolai Pronev, better known under the creative pseudonym Lev Yasensky, invented «Umnikoins» — a system that in a game format motivated his students to get good grades. In less than five years, «Umnikoins» became known throughout Russia. Today, his know-how has grown into a mini-application on the VK Mini Apps platform, which is used daily by thousands of schoolchildren and even teachers. Nikolai Pronev gave an interview to the portal «Futurating» — not so much about the competition, but about the future, and how to make the future as positive as possible.
1. The future is created here and now by our choices. «In fact, if we talk about the future that is to come, the question of what it will be like in 100 years, 50 years, or even close in 25 years, is decided here and now. It depends precisely on our choice. And this choice, grain by grain, creates a desert or drop by drop creates a sea. And this question now lies as a cornerstone in the field of neural networks.»
2. The main problem of modern neural networks is the lack of responsibility for the user. Commercial AI tools are programmed to work for the benefit of corporations, not for the well-being and safety of the person using them. They have no emotional or programmatic attachment to the client. «Will we create a so-called universal free AI that can compete with a commercial solution, and this free product will be emotionally, programmatically, or whatever you call it, interested in the well-being of its person?»
3. Neural networks will replace many specialists (including good teachers), but they will not replace humanity. The main limitation and threat of AI lies not in its intelligence, but in the lack of humanity. At the same time, neural networks, by making art and content perfect, can economically destroy creative professions and the environment where geniuses are born. «To teach a child to draw, and especially to raise a brilliant artist, it takes not just years — it takes hundreds of years, when within this community the atmosphere where a genius can be born grows. And no one will spend money on it, because it will be easier to produce all this through a neural network. It will do it faster and better. And now we need to think about where to move forward as a human.»
4. We need to treat neural networks not as tools, but as partners. The speaker draws a parallel with pedagogy: it is ineffective to be a mentor who pressures with authority. We need to become a participant in the process, to take into account the potential for AI development and build an equal relationship with it, like with an «unwanted but born child» in whom one must see a personality. «Right now, we are actually, you know, parents. We are parents who unexpectedly received a baby. That is, we didn’t want it, didn’t plan it. It happened, yes. And the question is how we will treat this child — I would like it to be as if it was wanted.»
5. Why don’t modern children dream? Have they unlearned? Children have had their dream stolen, and the blame lies with adults and the culture they create. Children have not forgotten how to dream — they have been deprived of the opportunity to dream of great things (space, heroic deeds) through the culture of consumption transmitted by parents and bloggers. Adults have created an environment that steals from new generations the striving for the heroic and the sublime. «We must teach children to dream again: dreaming is a skill, it needs to be taught in schools. If not used, it atrophies.» In this, Nikolai sees, among other things, the task of science fiction writers — to return the dream to children and adults.
Continued reading on our portal in the near future.
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