Relinquish control and let AI change lives for the better!

 

Relinquish control and let AI change lives for the better!

I was speaking to my Daughter the other day - she lives on a small holding, and they keep cows for beef production. The subject of AI cropped-up and it was a few minutes before I realised that she was considering dispensing with the services of a bull and trying AI (Artificial Insemination).

So, what about the other AI – Artificial Intelligence? I’d say, so far, so predictable.

The debate about the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has followed a rather inevitable pattern: benign neglect, followed by outright panic, ethical hand-wringing and drop-of-a-hat calls by European Union – and other - bureaucrats for regulation, regulation and yet more regulation!

Even the UK Government has got in on the red tape act, with Rishi Sunak’s proposals for a new regulatory body. 

So, what to make of it all?

Well firstly, just what exactly is AI? The question is a little like being asked to categorise all bird species in one paragraph. After all, there is a vast range of AI applications from ‘weak’ versions (AI trained and focused to perform specific tasks) through to theoretical ‘strong’ variations AI (where a machine would have an intelligence equal to that humans). 

IBM uses the following, broadly useful, definition: “ It is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself to methods that are biologically observable."

AI has become a pretty commonplace feature of our daily lives: from the mildly annoying (online customer chat bots) through to the useful (autonomous delivery robots) to the lifesaving (multi-disciplinary monitoring of illnesses and their treatments). 

Advances in AI’s language-generation capabilities have unbelievable promise. They enable higher-quality applications, such as the development of translation tools, digital assistants, and even news editors to improve communications and, therefore, understanding between people from different countries and cultures. 

In short, AI is already changing lives – for the better. 

As an optimist, I also believe, everything else being right, that AI can release us from the dreary tasks that weigh our lives down and it can cut out waste and the capacity for mistakes by making business decision-making better informed and more adaptable. 

There is a real chance for the UK to benefit in particular as arguably outside of the US and China, our research and development ecosystems between universities and applied AI pioneers are world beating.

What we don’t need, is a Luddite regulatory environment that kills off this growing sector. This country was a leader in GM foods in the 1990s, but that emerging success story – and the highly skilled and well-paid  jobs it could have created -  was throttled by the hysteria and childish antics of the green lobby and their Parliamentary and Whitehall stooges. 

From a libertarian perspective, as long as AI applications are not initiating violence or control against otherwise peaceful, innocent people, then bring it on!

The main worry behind some of the recent apocalyptic commentaries relates specifically to the development of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems which can decide within flexible parameters when to launch attacks and against who.

And it is in this sphere that I think there is a particular case for international agreements to restrict such research and development. More on that in a moment.

More generally, I believe that the best place for the ethical considerations around AI to be initially worked out is within the AI community itself which, after all, is putting up the risk capital and putting the hard yards in to develop commercially viable propositions. I’m not convinced we need much more involvement from regulators and inspectors and quality controllers than we have already across other sectors.

I find it more than a coincidence that the second loudest calls for regulation are coming from existing market leaders, including Microsoft-owned OpenAI of ChatGPT fame. This is an old trick, much loved by corporate businesses in particular, seeking to lock in their initial advantage by making it harder for the hundreds, if not thousands, of little developers from outflanking them.

As one US libertarian commentator explained: “Journalists are incentivised to sensationalise coverage of artificial intelligence and policymakers are too technically illiterate comprehend it.”

Therein lies the tyranny of state-backed oligopolies. And now we are being played to endorse their self-interest cause in the case of AI

And this is my major concern with such scare stories. They miss the point. The issue is not AI per se: it’s who programs and controls it, and indeed all other aspects of our lives. 

It is governments – western, as well as those in China and Russia - which are funding and rolling out technologies which seek to extend their surveillance of our entire lives – where we go, who we meet, what we are writing and saying, and what we might be thinking.

What is needed is not yet more regulation, and yet more control – it’s less of both!

  

First published on Thursday 6th July 2023 in www.suffolkfreepress.co.uk