AI Labs Closing For Our Benefit. Sure Buddy.
In yesterday’s blog, we saw another tech giant bite the dust. I concluded that planning isn’t the top concern of the fast-paced CEO in charge of culturally changing companies.
Sell the product, and deal with the repercussion after in court.
However, some tech leaders can read the writing on the wall and are willing to take a step back not only for their profession's salvation but; for humanity.
An open letter published by Future of Life, a non-profit organization working on reducing global catastrophe, urged all AI Labs with significant AI experiments to pause their work for 6-months. They have collected over 1800 signatures including the notable tech giants Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak.
The questions we asked while watching I’Robot are now the questions tech leaders are having amongst themselves with actual consequences. The open letter poses several questions that need answers before full AI integration:
“Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth?”
“Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones?”
“Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete, and replace us?”
“Should we risk the loss of control of our civilization?”
The letter ends with calls for an “AI Summer” break to give tech leaders that chance to engineer their systems toward a clear benefit and allow our society to adapt.
The letter also called for an independent government third party to review and regulate AI systems before releasing them to the public.
This moment reminds me of the meeting in Jekyll Island between the top bankers and treasury authorities to create the Federal Reserve. During the 19th century, there were financial panics and deep recessions across the nation with an American Bank system that could not sustain it. The industry assembled, creating a centralized plan that improved the American Bank's capabilities domestically and abroad. However, that same plan is the cause of our economic melancholy. The Federal Reserves overprinting of USD as “relief” for congressional policies is the main reason our inflation rate is so volatile. Similar conditions to the one J.P. Morgan and Senator Aldrich tried to escape from.
The moral of the story is industry risks to society can be managed but can never be eliminated, especially not by industry leaders.
Although the tech industry seems to be getting the message from Fintech, this signaling is neither genuine nor is it effective. If I was a shareholder of a tech company and I saw this letter, I would be furious. What are six months going to do? After years of massive layoffs, testing the technology, reassuring shareholders expansion is on the horizon, and seeing relative competitors unveil their new products, you want to take a “paid” 6-month vacation to plan some more. What were you doing in the beginning, was that not the agenda for the entire existence of the company, “How can our technology be a benefit to society and not damaging”, that should have been the goal before making a blueprint.
The fact the tech industry is now considering our well-being is concerning. Never trust technology or anything man-made.
Just have fun with it.
- Real