Pale: There Are Still No Technologies That Can Understand the World Like Humans

Before the coronavirus pandemic, no one could have imagined what the future of work would look like, Predrag Pale was already predicting that we would increasingly work from home. Today, as artificial intelligence changes the world faster than any technology before it, we were curious about what he believes awaits us with this revolutionary technology, whether more jobs will be created or disappear, and if we have reasons to be afraid.

Pale is, in fact, an expert in information technology, education, and information systems security, one of the founders of CARNET, and a pioneer of computer networking in Croatia.

For nearly four decades, he has been teaching at FER, where he has designed about ten courses, and currently leads the only social science course for freshmen. He advocates for faster changes in education, more collaboration, and stepping out of the comfort zone both in universities and society.

Almost all of your predictions from before the pandemic have come true. Is the future predictable?

– Before the pandemic, when I would ask someone: ‘Can we solve this online?’, it was an insult, as if you didn’t want to meet that person. And today, after the pandemic, when someone says: ‘We need to meet physically’, you respond: ‘Come on, we’ll solve it online.’ This change happened very quickly, and it is important for understanding the whole story about technology and its application. I wasn’t clairvoyant; I just knew what technology could do. This example nicely shows that just because technology can do something, it doesn’t mean we will use it that way.

We are slow; we slowly change habits, views on life, and the world. For instance, I fancy that I can predict which technologies will succeed, but neither I nor anyone else predicted social networks. Why? Because we were completely blind to psychology, to the human need to be someone, to show off. Technology remains unused until the appropriate user interface appears. This was the case with websites, for example. Only when we had a programming language and a screen that could display color images, cheap enough for most people to afford, did the application of that technology take off. On one hand, you need good hardware and software to use technology, and on the other hand, a human need. The pandemic created a need for us to meet, educate, and work remotely, without physical contact. Social networks arise from other psychological needs. And that is why it is difficult to predict the future.

Today we have a new force that influences our lives, artificial intelligence. What do you think, how will its development affect jobs?

– First of all, we do not have artificial intelligence; that is a marketing term. What we have are machines of various degrees of automation that are becoming increasingly powerful because we have faster processors, more memory, and many people constantly inventing new algorithms. But we do not have intelligence because we do not even know what human intelligence is. We do not fully understand the role of emotions, intuition, and empathy. That is why it is difficult to create artificial intelligence as the media presents it, one that can truly converse and understand like a human. Now we fear that jobs will disappear, and they are constantly disappearing. Do you know anyone who is a typist or stenographer today? Those professions vanished in a whisper without anyone noticing. It seems that with technologies like 4G, 5G, and large language models, machines can do what an intelligent person can do. However, it turns out that for many jobs we thought required high human intelligence, it is actually not needed. The time is coming to rethink many jobs that people do. If they only involve processing large amounts of data, perhaps that does not need to be done by a human, but by a computer.

What will people do then?

– Due to speed, cost savings, and a lack of people, technology will increasingly enter jobs that have so far been done by humans. These people will become redundant, and therefore they should learn something new. Many of us are not quick to learn new things or change careers. Unlike, say, North America, where it is normal to radically change careers, we in good old Europe, in conservative Croatia, do not like that. We do not like to move or change jobs. We would gladly do the same jobs our whole lives. And then we feel threatened. We are sensitive and divided when it comes to self-driving cars, but that will certainly happen. This year, in five years, or in twenty, it is hard to say, because we do not depend only on that technology but also on the readiness of society, reactions, media, political, and inter-state interests. Just imagine how many other administrative jobs will disappear.

Do you have an example of those administrative jobs, or so-called white-collar jobs, that are at risk?

– For example, translators. We already have very good tools. Not all will disappear; the domain in which we will need them will narrow. With digital signatures, scanning, digital archives, and forms, I don’t know how we will define or redefine the job of a notary, who certifies, connects a person with your signature. I may be wrong, but we will see. For now, we do not yet see technologies that could truly understand the world as humans do. Because we are talking about ontologies, about knowledge, about connecting different knowledge. Only when that is achieved will technology perhaps be able to provide the right advice. For example, legal, psychological, health, artistic advice… These are areas where deep understanding of context and nuances is required, which today’s technology cannot yet achieve. What can be described with formulas and defined processes, for example, how tiles are glued and how an equation is calculated, computers will be able to do all that. Where we cannot provide a clear rule, we need a human.

Do you think new jobs will emerge that did not exist before, and will there be more of them than those that will disappear?

– I am not an expert on these matters, but from a layman’s perspective, I have the impression that many professions will emerge that we, old people, would call unnecessary, and people will be willing to pay for them. These are, for example, professions in the entertainment field, where I mean music, film, games, professional sports, and various other forms of content. Essential things for mere survival, such as food and energy production, will require fewer and fewer people involved in those processes.

Unfortunately, there are also those in the world who would use AI for malicious purposes. How dangerous is it, not only for the labor market but for society as a whole?

– Unfortunately, humans are capable of misusing any tool, and not only to the detriment of others but also to their own. Perhaps I am even more afraid of the uneducated, incompetent misuse than the malicious one. I fear that we will use AI for something it is not good for, or that we will attribute functions to it that it should not have. We will leave ‘decision-making’ to that tool, whatever the program outputs, without asking questions. Or we will choose the wrong program based on incorrect data for the wrong purpose. That is why it is very important to know what data is being worked with and for what purpose the tool is used. Europe is trying to protect citizens with regulations and laws, but we cannot pass a law that will protect us from something we do not yet know exists. The issue must first appear, it must start to be applied, we must see the negative consequences, and only then can we think of a law. And even when we come up with it, we still have to be able to enforce it.

In the 1990s, you were an assistant for informatics in the Ministry of Science and Technology, during which you founded CARNET and brought the internet to Croatia. What would you advise, for example, the Minister of Digital Transformation today?

– Well, I would be afraid; it is a very responsible thing. On the other hand, I have a worldview that I advocated back then, in the 90s, although not very successfully, and that is that the only hope and sure obligation is for all of us to be as educated as possible. This means reducing the gap between what we use and how well we know it as much as possible. I have always advocated that the people, especially those who serve them – administration, politicians, leaders – be very educated when it comes to the technology they use and for which they are responsible, so that they make as few mistakes as possible in decision-making. When it comes to machine intelligence, if it accurately generates answers for reading assignments, does that mean we should not allow children to use large language models? Excuse me, but that is nonsense. It only means that our task for the student is not well set. As tools become more powerful, we should also change what we actually ask of students.

What do you advise your students who are just entering the labor market, how should they prepare for future careers that may not even exist yet?

– We cannot prepare children for the future. We can only prepare them to master well what is known to us today. With the advent of the internet, and now with ChatGPT, one can learn quadratic equations, grammar, and similar things with the help of a computer. The question arises as to what we need teachers for. In my opinion, a teacher must be a master in their field, but also a mentor, observing, guiding, enabling the student to stumble and make mistakes in order to learn, because we learn only from mistakes. For example, I teach a mandatory course in communication skills in the first year. I have completely reformed it, and now I teach students how to write a resume and a cover letter. I also teach them why conflicts arise, what their causes are, and solutions. I also teach them how to conduct meetings so that they are not boring and useless. I teach them how to write professional, scientific, and popular texts, how to find and verify information, how to take photographs and videos, make presentations, speak in public, and negotiate.

How do students of the technological faculty react to such tasks?

– Everyone wants to solder and program; they come to college with that mindset. And if they have to take such a course, they would prefer to take it at the end, not at the beginning. Of course, there are always bright examples; some reach out and praise the course content. Now that this course has been led by my colleague Assistant Professor Juraj Petrović and me for nine years, we also have those who have already graduated, and as they get older, we hear more and more praise. They say they now realize how good and useful it was. Although, for example, when we teach them how to write a resume, we give them examples of what they could write as freshmen. Examples like: ‘I babysat children’, ‘I love robots’, ‘I have never done anything practical, but I can learn a lot if I work with you.’ And I explain to them why that is important and what it means to an employer who, for example, awards them a scholarship. We strive to make all of this useful, but you cannot change them overnight. They come from a school system that has shaped them for twelve years. We encounter many problems. For example, they do not know how to learn independently and effectively. And those skills are crucial, the ones that employers seek when young people enter the labor market.

On the other hand, employers also need to adapt. Where might they be going wrong, are they expecting too much?

– If we are talking about universities and faculties, I believe that my or our job is not to create a worker for the employer who will produce for them tomorrow. Our job is to create a worker whom they can prepare for work with short training and easily retrain. It is essential that this worker knows how to learn and fundamentally understands things so that they can quickly master anything new, because everything is changing rapidly. Today, one programming language is popular, tomorrow another. I do not claim that our study and our faculty, or any other on a global level, are good enough. We should have radically changed some things long ago, but that is slow. Universities are sluggish systems everywhere in the world, and that is not good, but that does not mean that students should be buried in theory with little practice. In fact, I believe that our entire school education should include much more practice, and that is not happening.

In your rich career, you have also ventured into entrepreneurship. You are a co-founder of the company Nobium, but you do not have an executive role in it?

– Before I came to the faculty, I worked for four years in the industry and in the 1980s founded a company in Austria with an Austrian partner, where we worked on a language for databases. When I became the assistant minister, I handed everything over to my partners. When I returned from the ministry, I came back to the faculty. Professors Hrvoje Babić and Branko Jeren (Minister of Science, Technology, and Informatics from 1993 to 1995, ed.) established a group at FER that worked on computer instrumentation for the Maritime and Civil Engineering Institute, something very specialized and specific, and I was the first employee. Later, I took over the leadership of that group, and I actually entered teaching by chance. When we were working on CARNET in that group, which was a parallel job for me alongside the faculty, the need arose for designing a computer network.

In the end, we concluded that a few of us needed to establish a company, and thus Nobium was founded in 2002, which deals with the design and supervision of computer network construction. I am responsible for technical issues and strategic project management. Nobium also deals with computer security, which I lead at the research and educational level at the faculty. The operational part of Nobium is managed by other people. In 2005, we also founded a second company, Aquilonis, because we wanted to be the first Croatian company for knowledge management. So, we are engaged in knowledge management. Knowledge management is necessary so that you only make a mistake once and acquire knowledge only once.

What is the demand for such services?

– Unfortunately, too little. In Croatia, managers and politicians are the ones who drive change, but no one knows that there is a profession of change management that can be taught. For years, I have been teaching students how to manage changes, projects, meetings, and conflicts. That is why they gave me the responsibility to take over that subject because they knew I had been doing it for the industry for years. We do many projects with schools, and just today I received an inquiry from a pharmaceutical company.

In previous interviews, you emphasized that Croatia should turn to craftsmanship and trades, not industry. Do you still believe that?

– I do not think we should have no industry, but too much emphasis is placed on ‘big’. Compared to, for example, India, Croatia is small and insignificant. It makes no sense for us to compete in the production of plastic chairs or anything else. As a layman, it seems to me that poor state management has resulted in us not producing all the food and textiles we need. Perhaps we do not need to produce cars and computers, but to survive in the world, we can engage in niches. I will return to machine intelligence: in craftsmanship, art, science, and education, where there is no mass production and where cheap labor and robots cannot work, a human, human creativity, is needed. That is what we should turn to. As people become wealthier in the world, they will want more unique, non-industrial products. In that, I believe a small nation like ours can have a nice opportunity in the world.