Can we teach and then live with an AI?

Written SH on 2023-05-02.

In future tp . Tagged ai

The continued popular emergence of the machine learning models typically reported as AI continues. It is perhaps amusing that in the near future the topic will become so current it no longer features in TPEX’s future imagining. Don’t fear I suspect the topic will move into our risk and 10th person advocacy considerations easily.

While many articles look optimistically at the potential an increasing number are concerned with the risk. Public engagement by governments is also increasing as well which is welcome but has yet to create a robust debate about humanities options.

A more commensurate response to AI would place concerns over the livelihoods and material well-being of citizens at the forefront of the debate, where they might serve as counterpoints to the still-dominant narrative about AI’s supposed inevitability and indispensability.
Cuenco, M., 2023. We Must Declare Jihad Against A.I.. online.

Within the article the concerns are interestingly illustrated in light of the emergence of social media. An apt illustration as to a recently lived through technological disruption. Which has had significant impact in both the life of the individual and society in general. Knowing what we know now would we have chosen social media for ourselves, for our children, for our societies?

Unwarranted optimism about disruptive technology enabled the uncritical embrace of social media and related web 2.0 platforms a decade and a half ago. Today, we are just beginning to reckon with the socially corrosive effects of these applications.
Cuenco, M., 2023. We Must Declare Jihad Against A.I.. online.

The article offers also one of the most complete lists of the jobs and roles likely to be replaced by the emerging AI tools. Some may call this scaremongering but I would suggest that this is realistic. Especially, when combined with the neoliberal economic profit motive. Why have it done well when you can just have it done quickly/cheaply?

The scale of the envisioned transformations this time around is even more radical and all-encompassing: AI copywriters, AI lawyers, AI accountants, AI programmers, AI engineers, AI architects, AI musicians and composers, AI novelists, poets, and visual artists, AI administrators, AI filmmakers and actors, AI teachers, and AI philosophers, AI doctors, and the list goes on (to include even AI friends and AI lovers).
Cuenco, M., 2023. We Must Declare Jihad Against A.I.. online.

There is also an assessment that the military would see an AGI as an potential adversary and as a consequence they would seek to limit the development of such systems and also the systems placed under its control. However, the assessment that multiple independent parties would come to this realisation independently and with synchronicity seems unlikely. Consequently I would still consider AGI to be one of the most significant threats emerging.

Given the risks of a rogue or malfunctioning AI in the defense sector, Washington and Beijing would likely have an interest in restricting their AI defense technologies to limited, specialized, and non-comprehensive applications.
Cuenco, M., 2023. We Must Declare Jihad Against A.I.. online.

Perhaps statements within the National Defence Strategy from the American Department of Defence can be considered within this light as well.

In all cases, the United States will maintain a human “in the loop” for all actions critical to informing and executing decisions by the President to initiate and terminate nuclear weapon employment.
US Department of Defence, 2022. National Defense Strategy. online.

However the perverse attractiveness of an AGI facilitated nuclear dead man switch it’s likely to be significant. Also once a single party implement it would not others feel compelled to do so as well? Such a situation is perhaps even more likely as once one AGI has launch control is the risk not fully realised?

Tenth Person

AGI will almost certainly be a powerful profit-making tool in the short term and businesses which fail to engage with the technology are likely to struggle to compete. However, the long-term reputational risk of AGI could be significant especially if no concern for societal well-being is prioritised.

Future Imagining

We could imagine a future where humanity lives an enriched existence supported by AGI systems and fully automated production methods leaving humanity to explore beauty. Or, a future where AGI systems have rendered the environment destroyed. The AGI risk is real, the AGI opportunity is real.

I'm ready to future-ready my business!

References

Cuenco, M., 2023. We Must Declare Jihad Against A.I.. Compact Mag.URL.

US Department of Defence, 2022. National Defense Strategy.URL.

About TPEX

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