Wisdom in AI Development
While a segment of the population concerns itself with the fiction of being replaced by migrant workers and asylum seekers entering the country, they are blind to a threat from within our borders—artificial intelligence (AI).
There are a growing number of AI applications in development and being tested that could potentially replace many of the current skilled work force. It may not be by design, but AI seems poised to assume many jobs that currently require knowledge workers: writers, designers, video editors, and software engineers. Many of these applications are still in the learning/beta stage of development but are already very powerful and could be completely up and running in five years or so.
How will we wisely deploy AI to the benefit of society and not just give it free reign, letting the pieces fall where they may? This question requires an answer as we move forward with this new technology. Our virtually hands off approach to social media has not proven to be a very successful experiment. We came very close to losing the country we thought we knew. Young people have been harmed physically and emotionally by our inadequate response to social media. Unless big tech companies can expand their concern beyond profits, we may make a similar mistake with AI.
Disruption
In the early 2000s U.S. manufacturing went overseas at a higher rate than in the past because of low labor costs and the advances in telecommunications and the internet, the job losses destabilized many communities. People were left on their own to cope with the loss of income, many turned to opioids and alcohol as a coping mechanism. Little thought was given to the effect of the mass exodus of well-paying manufacturing jobs. It was believed that people who lost jobs, health care, homes and access to nutrition would benefit from the lower prices they could pay for goods, goods that they could only afford to buy if they had jobs that paid a living wage.
The AI disruption won’t just be confined to the recently unemployed, but it will impact our entire society like the offshoring of manufacturing jobs has done. The pandemic gave us a hard look at how fragile our current system is. We buckled underneath the weight of the problem but did not suffer a total breakdown. However, a major interruption was experienced in this country, and it is still recovering from it.
The middle class has shrunk while the wealthiest Americans have seen large gains in their fortunes. There has been an increase in homelessness and food insecurity. These problems exist now. We are already seeing a large reduction in employees in the big tech sector. Sales Force, Amazon, Google, Netflix, and Meta are laying off thousands of workers as this is being written. Between Google, Meta, and Amazon we are talking about 39,000 layoffs alone. This current attrition is not directly attributable to AI, but in five years it very well could be. More people out of work won’t make for a stronger economy.
An economy that runs on debt and is fed by the consumer consumption of goods, will suffer major hiccups by blindly embracing technological advancement without addressing those displaced by it. Employment is the holy grail of American society. It is the solution to all known problems. We demonize those who don’t work and praise those who live to work. Many legislators don’t want to expand or continue current safety nets due to the cost involved. Homelessness, food insecurity, loss of health care, and an increase in poverty will cost us. Failing to look at technology’s impact as a possible disruptor will cost society. A universal income may become a necessity in our AI-capitalist economy. As we look towards the future, it's important that we consider the assumptions behind our current policies and how they might need to be adjusted.
In the early days of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg said that the company’s motto was to ‘move fast and break things.’ We can kick the can down the road but eventually we must face the problems created by our unexamined haste. I am not against technological advances, but they can’t just be for the sake of advancement alone or profit. We can’t just continue doing things just because we can. Unconscious creation can lead to unexpected, unwanted results. It's important to consider the potential disruptions caused by AI beyond the “cost savings” benefits of replacing highly paid workers. We have been here before. We have a chance to make a different choice this time.
Is Concern Warranted?
OpenAI is an AI technology firm in California that has released its third iteration of their ChatGPT application in late November of 2022. It is a language-based form of artificial intelligence created to assist humans in a variety of tasks. It can be prompted to write stories and or poetry based on your inquiry. It can write computer code. It can act as a research assistant. It is not a search engine. It returns information in a human dialog format and is currently not able to access the internet. Many people are very impressed with this latest version of the software. I have played with it myself. I asked it to tell me about the potential threat of AI. Below is the response it generated.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize many aspects of our lives, from healthcare and transportation to education and entertainment. However, the development and deployment of AI technologies also raise concerns and ethical issues, including the potential threat they may pose to jobs, privacy, and even the very survival of humanity.
One of the primary concerns about the potential threat of AI is its impact on employment. As AI technologies become more advanced and widely adopted, they may be able to automate many tasks and jobs that are currently performed by humans. This could lead to widespread job loss and economic disruption, particularly among low-skilled workers.
Another concern is the potential for AI to be used for malicious purposes, such as cyber-attacks or the development of autonomous weapons. If AI systems are not carefully designed and regulated, they could pose a significant risk to public safety and security.
There is also the possibility that AI could be used to amplify existing biases and inequalities in society, or to further suppress marginalized groups. For example, AI-powered facial recognition systems have been shown to have higher error rates for people of color, raising concerns about their potential use in law enforcement.
Finally, some experts have raised the possibility of an "AI arms race," in which different countries or groups compete to develop increasingly advanced AI technologies, potentially leading to a situation in which the control and use of AI becomes a significant source of tension or conflict.
Overall, while AI has the potential to bring many benefits, it is important that we carefully consider and address the potential risks and challenges it presents. This will require collaboration and dialogue among researchers, policymakers, and the public, as well as the development of ethical guidelines and regulations to ensure that the deployment of AI technologies is responsible and beneficial to society.
Proceeding with Caution
We don’t seem to have much appetite in this country for carefully considering and addressing the potential risks and challenges new technology presents. We don’t have an excuse anymore. We have experienced the technological changes to the workplace introduced by the industrial revolution of the 1900s. The productivity of the machines and the abuse of the laborers erupted in strikes and the rise of unions. We have been through the emergence of the internet and its many advances as it disrupted the publishing industry and brick and mortar retail. We experienced the emergence of social media as it was leveraged to disrupt our elections and threaten democracy. The disruptive nature of these technologies is known to us. We must take the initiative now to regulate this new tech so that it doesn’t trample us.
We have failed to effectively protect individuals' privacy and personal data. In the U.S., there are few regulations in place to curb the data usage practices of large tech companies. The advertising revenue that they rely on would be significantly reduced if rules were adopted to protect the consumers. This may be a partial explanation for why so little has been done. AI has the potential to be an economic, social, and security threat. It will require thoughtful regulation if it is meant to benefit all of us.