Steve Wozniak (Apple) warns of the "loss of critical thinking" with AI

BarcelonaAlthough when you think of Apple you inevitably come to the figure of Steve Jobs, the technology giant would not be what it is today without its other father, Steve Wozniak (California, 1950). He is an electronic engineer, although he defines himself as an "inventor", and he marked a before and after in the world of technology with the development of the first personal computer in the 1970s. The Apple I would end up becoming the first computer launched by the brand with the bitten apple when, together with Jobs, they began to market it. I spent my free time drawing and designing computers, and when I finished high school I knew I wanted to be an engineer, but what I didn't know was that engineers designed computers, I thought they only made radios and fabrics; "I told my parents that my dream was to have a computer; I preferred to have a computer than a house," he explains.

Although Wozniak eventually left Apple in 1985 –"So I could be a normal person," he has explained in interviews in the past–, his mark on the world of technology and computing is indisputable. After leaving the company, he continued to undertake and created the first programmable universal remote control, this time without Apple behind him, and became a philanthropist. "I didn't want wealth, that kind of life, I decided to give my fortune to museums, to foundations... it's my way of life," he explained to applause from the audience.

A dart at Musk

Wozniak doesn't like politics. "I told myself: I will never vote, I don't want to know anything about politics; I just wanted to make computers and be an engineer," he explains. With this firm statement and when asked his opinion on Elon Musk's position of power in Donald Trump's government, the engineer said that "the skills needed for technology are very different from those needed for politics." Thus, he was blunt: "I don't like what's happening."

"Technology companies are huge, and they have so much money that they are always involved in politics," he said, and insisted that he disapproves of them having power in governments. He added that "sometimes it can make sense to run a government like a company," but that in Musk's case he does not see it in a good light.

"Big tech companies already own a part of their users' lives through subscriptions," he said, which prevents people from owning what they buy. "I like my stuff to be mine. When I like a song, for example, I buy it, put it in my folder, organize it the way I want... Not from a streaming platform from which they can take away my access," he explained.

Reluctance in AI

"Humans have feelings, when we express an idea we know if it makes us feel better or worse. With AI this doesn't exist: there is only one rule, one answer, and I don't like that," Wozniak criticised. "I prefer to share, for everyone to put their ideas into things. If the results of AI are passed off as their own, the ability to think critically and decide things for oneself is lost; it's the easy way out," he said.

Although he recognised that "it can be very helpful", he also considers that AI has "terrifying" aspects. "I believe in the concept of A [artificial], not so much in I [intelligence]," he said. In this sense, he believes that if people use AI without questioning it "they lose the ability to think critically", so he asked that the information be interpreted when it is received.

"There are some problems with AI, such as the deepfakes, and we need to keep that in mind," he said. According to Wozniak, "AI should be open source; everything should be open source." He also argued that there should be regulations that force AI to show the source from which they have taken any phrase they display: "This would help to know if the information is useful or not." However, he assures that we are still far from there: "No one has been able to give machines human intelligence."