Dependent on whom you listen to, AI is either going to save or destroy humanity.
In common with most leaps in human knowledge, the reality lies somewhere in the middle. Winners and losers are guaranteed.
Technology will race blindly ahead with society attempting to play catch-up and unable to do so because of its inability to know the unknown.
The one known is that the AI genii is well and truly out of the bottle and won’t/can’t be stuffed back in. The trick therefore is how to regulate it in order to maximise the upside and minimise the downside.
One of the most pressing AI-related needs is for an agreed international framework. The technology has the potential to impact military capabilities to such a degree that it could dwarf the significance of nuclear weapons. A nationalist-driven AI-race is bad. Unfortunately it has already started.
Britain’s post-Brexit economy is declining and the government sees AI as an opportunity to harness the country’s small but effective high-tech industry to reverse the trend. It has issued a White Paper which emphasises a Wild West approach to Artificial Intelligence in a bid to become an AI super power. It will avoid “heavy-handed legislation which could stifle innovation” and “take an adaptable approach to regulating AI.”
The UK’s aims are increase investment and development of Artificial Intelligence; minimise regulation; drive growth and prosperity; increase public trust in AI and “strengthen the UK’s position as a global leader in Artificial Intelligence.”
The 27 members of the EU are at the other end of the AI regulatory spectrum. Brussels is pushing through a raft of new laws to regulate the different uses of AI category by category. Almost every day a new rule is imposed to force AI creators to disclose underlying algorithms and produce an assessment of the social risks of each application. Some uses—such as the application of AI to biometrics – have already been banned.
The Chinese are the tortoise in the AI race, but determined to catch up, especially as regards military applications. The CCP, however, is worried about the effect that Artificial Intelligence will have on their overarching control of Chinese society. A recent policy document said that AI cannot be used to “call for the subversion of state power or the overthrow of the Chinese Communist Party.”
All Chinese companies are required to register AI products with China’s Cyberspace Agency and submit to a security assessment before they can be made public. They cannot include pornographic content, encourage violence, extremism, terrorism or discrimination.
The US tends to view AI through the fear-of-China-prism.” Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer has taken the lead in investigating the opportunities and pitfalls of Artificial Intelligence. Recently he gave a press conference in which he stressed that the “It is vital that the US must stay ahead of China and shape and leverage the rules of AI” in order to “protect American values.”
So far no significant state or federal regulations have emerged, but Senator Schumer has come up with “guardrails” which put America and its Silicon Valley on a path between the UK and EU. Schumer proposes that all AI products should identify the creator and its intended audience; disclose all data sources; explain the purpose of each product; provide a transparent story and propose firm ethical boundaries.
Artificial Intelligence is here to stay. And so is the race to exploit and control it.
* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He also contributes to “The New World” magazine and lectures on world affairs. He is the author of “America Made in Britain,” two editions of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “The Falklands Crisis.”
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The trick therefore is how to regulate it in order to maximise the upside and minimise the downside.
It’s not AI technology that needs to be regulated, but its applications, such as military, surveillance and medical where there may be serious consequences when errors occur (as they will). Most areas are already covered by existing legislation; AI is just another tool. One suspects that the main reason governments want to legislate here is to extend the censorship that now pervades legacy and social media. Currently, it’s easy for a knowledgable person to expose the pre-programmed biases and censorship within AI systems simply by asking a few pertinent questions, as in this example…
‘ChatGPT Is Your Standard Climate Scientist…’:
https://electroverse.info/chatgpt-is-your-standard-climate-scientist/
The trick therefore is how to regulate it in order to maximise the upside and minimise the downside.
It’s not AI technology that needs to be regulated, but its applications, such as military, surveillance and medical where there may be serious consequences when errors occur (as they will). Most areas are already covered by existing legislation; AI is just another tool. One suspects that the main reason governments want to legislate here is to extend the cen-sorship that now pervades legacy and social media. Currently, it’s easy for a knowledgable person to expose the pre-programmed biases and cen-sorship within AI systems simply by asking a few pertinent questions, as in this example…
‘ChatGPT Is Your Standard Climate Scientist…’:
https://electroverse.info/chatgpt-is-your-standard-climate-scientist/
Tom concludes his article with “Artificial Intelligence is here to stay. And so is the race to exploit and control it.”
It is also true that it will fundamentally change the world of work as we know it in a modern day luddite revolution and with far greater reach than the decline of coal mining and heavy industry in this country.
Related to the AI technological evolution is the issue of Universal basic income. A UBI of £1600 per month is to be trialled in two places in England Universal basic income of £1,600 a month to be trialled in two places in England
“Our society is going to require some form of basic income in the coming years, given the tumult of climate change, tech disruption and industrial transition that lies ahead. This is why building the evidence base and public engagement now is so important, so the ground is well prepared for national implementation.”
Liverpool Mayor Andy Burnham comments “A universal basic income will put a solid foundation beneath everybody so that they can have a life with security and stop worrying about everything.”
The trials will run in Jarrow and East Finchley Universal basic income: Plans drawn up for £1,600 a month trial in England
Britain’s post-Brexit economy is declining and the government sees AI as an opportunity to harness the country’s small but effective high-tech industry to reverse the trend.
No longer declining. Not small.
‘IMF Says UK Economy Will Grow Faster Than Germany This Year’ [May 2023]:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-23/imf-upgrades-uk-growth-but-warns-rates-may-need-to-rise-further#xj4y7vzkg
‘London crowned tech king of the world’ [May 2023]:
https://thenextweb.com/news/london-crowned-tech-king-of-the-world
AI needs regulating and at the last resort we pull the plug. However, it might enable us to tolerate unmitigated climate change and give us time to lower greenhouse gases sufficiently for human life on earth to continue.