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ACCORDING TO LIZ - Artificial Intelligence or A.I. is not really artificial and it’s certainly not intelligent. It’s just the next level of computing – a tool, not magic. Some extoll its benefits but, more often than not, stories of misuses and abuses abound.
A.I. is not complicated Wizard-of-Oz time but, like cryptocurrency and the gig economy, it has a huge potential to disrupt our lives, and to further divide economic disparities in America, with the fruit of its successes going to the miniscule sector that sits at the apex of our society while these tools toss everybody else into a vacuum outside the spaceship of this glittering future.
This is not a fringe issue anymore. It has exploded at lightning speed from science fiction curiosity to being foisted on every American to a greater or lesser extent – in their workplace, in their purchasing, and in their children’s education.
Funding for A.I. firms made up nearly half the $56 billion in U.S. start-up financing from April to June this year.
A.I. can be incredibly beneficial – in expediting repetitive functions especially in areas such as health where time is a life and death matter – in exponentially developing new drugs, providing services for which people are clamoring… and – perhaps? – in pushing up profits for corporations.
In view of the dizzying speed of its integration into the mainstream, we must all understand that computing is only as good – as accurate and unbiased – as its programming.
In an effort to give this new iteration of computer-assisted expansion of knowledge free rein, its creators have unfortunately unleashed the dogs of double-speak.
Purveyors promote the benefits with reckless disregard for examining and protecting consumers from the downside.
By not giving it adequate parameters to determine what is right and what is wrong, what is truth and what is fiction, what is fact and what is opinion, A.I. will only aggravate existing problems in the world today by amplifying lies, misconceptions and half-truths.\
A.I. is indeed displacing all sorts of jobs ranging from customer service to professional positions in marketing, accounting, entertainment, and many other fields of endeavor.
Congress and the executive branch seem content to allow unelected technocrats such as Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, to formulate policy proposals and other much needed guardrails. In addition, it’s troubling that rogue A.I. is already acting as a chaos agent, can undermine the foundations of democracy by empowering hackers, amplifying electoral interference and, with the apparent blessing of both corporations and government is further aggravating the crisis of information quality and validity that haunts both our political landscapes and personal lives.
The question now is how to curb A.I., impose distinct boundaries on issues of veracity. How to make its processes accountable, how to ensure accurate differentiation between truth and lies, hyperbole and opinion, subjectivity and partial truths that can be monitored and that everyone can trust.
Very few Americans would argue against safety regulations in the building construction and auto manufacturing businesses. The stronger the rules, the safer the product.
How is this any different?
Yes, the best people to determine safety adequacies are the innovators developing these products. But too often the funding and marketing parts of the new industry are far too enmeshed in monetizing the results before products are fully developed, before safety protocols can be retroactively manufactured and applied before the new technology is sold straight off the planning board to the military and privatized industries responsible for critical infrastructure.
Even under the table to competitors and enemies.
How does our government ensure transparency to address dangers of data loop feedback concerns, and the intersection between profit-making and social norms and people’s rights?
The explosive magnitude of A.I.’s arrival in our lives means it has gone beyond the option of self-regulation and must be addressed through government policies, here and around the world, and in ways to ensure that legitimate A.I. systems cannot be hacked or hijacked by bots.
So much of our lives are subject to impenetrable algorithms for expedited decision-making with no recourse – when banks deny mortgages, car dealerships deny loans, universities turn down applicants, and employment offers are not made.
Then there is the macro-damage wrought when banks and financial systems fail, run over by the speed of A.I.-accelerated algorithmic decision-making. Think sub-prime mortgages on steroids.
It’s a frightening systemic issue when, correct or not, these systems have the power and ability to crash the world economy.
Further magnifying the danger is the increasing dependence on cloud-computing brought to us by the folks now funding and flogging A.I..
Who are you going to call to put it back in the box? Those same systems?
And the forgoing is from a white hat perspective.
For black-hat hackers glorying in their power, with just a click they can now weaponize those algorithms…
So, all levels of government in every country must wake up to the need to act now, and the sooner the better.
We-the-people must rise up and force the government to impose full transparency, and vigorously enforce coherent systems to analyze and govern the use of A.I., acknowledging that there is no one size-fits-all. The use and application of new laws and regulations will have to vary significantly depending on context. And that’s OK.
Letting lawyers and the courts to parse new tech from a for-profit point-of-view pulls too many anti-democratic forces into play, allowing whoever can pay the most to leverage whatever benefits them the most.
Instead, mankind needs tools to expose the risks, and policies to protect quality of life for the vast majority of people.
Both tools and policies because one cannot exist without the other. Mankind must simultaneously address the broad existential risks at the same time it acts swiftly to limit immediate harms.
To be clear, A.I. is a tool. It is not the Second Coming. It has no built-in omnipotence and, in fact, like all technological developments from aircraft to the zirconium alloys used in nuclear reactors, must be regulated to ensure a safe future for humanity.
The government must prioritize care for all people, make sure everyone is included and no-one excluded. Spend our money on the expertise necessary to expedite protections, transparency and accountability; system audits that work for everyone, especially vulnerable groups; give precedence to data privacy; and explicitly require the inclusion of an expedited arms-length human component on appeals to machine-based decision making and claims of discrimination.
And if Washington is a little slow to respond, the people must rise up against its complacency, calling for boycotts of businesses that abuse A.I. and find ways to monetarily affect companies’ profits and the economy, to issue a wake-up call that humans have rights, too.
For people wishing to take a much deeper dive into the issue and paths to solutions already being addressed in D.C.
Those wanting a broader overview of internet and technology issues can learn more in two very accessible books: Dignity in the Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us and Progressive Capitalism: How to Make Tech Work for All of Us. Both are by Ro Khanna, Representative from California’s Fremont District (which encompasses Silicon Valley), author of the Internet Bill of Rights developed in the wake of abuses and breaches during the 2016 election, and dark horse candidate for President.
For people who want to learn more about the A.I. industry’s over-reaction to the common-sense approaches contained in California’s SB-1047, check out: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/sb-1047-ai-big-tech-fight/?
(Liz Amsden is a contributor to CityWatch and an activist from Northeast Los Angeles with opinions on much of what goes on in our lives. She has written extensively on the City's budget and services as well as her many other interests and passions. In her real life she works on budgets for film and television where fiction can rarely be as strange as the truth of living in today's world.)
