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ACCORDING TO LIZ - Wake up! Why aren’t people protesting that, over the past eight months or so, online life has become rapidly more challenging even as A.I. is being touted as the future for making our lives easier?
Anyone else notice the deterioration of search-engine results? That looking for paint pulls up anything but in hardware stores, that spell-check “corrects” the very meaning of what you are trying to communicate?
How many other writers struggle to edit, and have their train of thought derailed by Word insisting anything it doesn’t recognize from its database must be “fixed” before addressing narrative flow and meaning?
The fact is that, as A.I.-assisted algorithms ramp up, the quality of the results are tumbling rapidly downhill.
To what extent they contributed to the CrowdStrike crash which grounded airlines and shut down the 911 system in July, and cut all service for American cellphones in Europe the month before may never be known.
And as A.I.-generated data becomes harder and harder to detect, it’s more likely to train future A.I. iterations. Leading to poorer and poorer results.
When A.I. mentors itself, this circular loop feedback accelerates the downward spiral. It certainly has neither the wisdom nor the perspective to let go of what is wrong to allow for quality over quantity, something which can generate self-improvement in humans.
Even the vaunted Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs has reservations. Jim Covello, its head of stock research, recently cautioned investors that A.I. costs too much, makes too many mistakes, and that building too much of what the world doesn’t need “typically ends badly.”
At the moment, competition for research and consumer dollars has created a Wild West in the tech industry. Anything goes. There are few standards, nothing enforceable, not even a structure through which to work on developing oversight.
This technology is taking jobs away from people, exchanging logic for love, promoting pixels over feelings and, in consuming copious amounts of energy, is accelerating global warming.
Scholars and scientists, business executives and government contractors, need to vastly improve processes addressing the conflicts and concerns that have boiled over with the almost cancerous growth of this new field.
We need chief A.I. officers in every single entity to ensure systemic coherence and consistency, however we desperately need to avoid the bureaucracy and red tape that has rendered so many regulatory procedures sclerotic. The focus must be flexibility and immediate accountability.
This is especially essential in the weaponization of A.I. for military applications around the world. Already, in response to the ongoing Russian invasion, Ukrainian companies are adapting A.I.-enhanced consumer technology. And it’s a certainty that the U.S. military is far out in front of that curve.
There are increasing concerns about components or entire systems being manufactured overseas where governments may be inimical to American interests and could include fantastical Trojan-horse viruses.
Eerily echoed in the low-tech pager murders and maiming of Hezbollah members and those in their vicinity last week.
Is the world prepared for the fact that artificial-intelligence-powered autonomous weapons systems are changing the fundamental nature of warfare? Terminator 2025, here we come!
A strong start would be to impose restrictions, including mandating data transparency and decision-making protocols, on federal contractors i.e. the employers of about 20% of the American workforce and, from there, rapidly expand such oversight protocols outwards both within the United States and through its allies and the United Nations.
Since almost all technology companies sell items or components to governments, that expansion should occur as fast and as far as A.I.’s rollout in the first place.
Unfortunately, initiating this will take time, so it’s urgent our government start immediately, prioritizing the must-dos over the should-dos and addressing first what is feasible, the low-hanging fruit, in a roll-out designed to leave nothing out.
Inspiring people to come with solutions now, not navel-gaze on the problems. Embracing Google’s initial motto of “Don’t be evil” while it still exists as a cultural assumption in the Silicon Valley around the world.
Before A.I. makes it obsolete.
Before mergers and monopolies magnify the systemic risk of A.I. dangers.
To do so, all governments need to stand firm against pressure from the industries it has to regulate, those powerful companies that claim they are “on top of things” when ample evidence exists that they aren’t.
It is the moral obligation of our elected officials to step in and protect people from potential harm, to mitigate dangers before the worst of their impacts can be felt. To do anything but, is a recipe for disaster.
We need a sea-change in American culture to put corporations firmly under the thumb of the people, to reimagine all tech as governable and subject it to the rule of law and, while continuing to support innovation, ensure that all endeavors are in the best interest of the vast majority.
The goal must be establishing the interests of the people of the United States as firmly in control of changes to our future, including fully embedding democratization into a collaborative approach to ongoing policy and development in every area that affects our lives.
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 this out.
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 in 2028.
For people wishing to take a much deeper dive into the issue and paths to solutions already being addressed in D.C.
(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.)
