In contrast to traditional research and development, which has an end goal and explores how best to get there, the AI industry works from the other direction. There is no plan; it’s a no-limits race to exploit the technology regardless of the social, economic and security concerns. The driver is to entrench AI before society realises the dangers.
This reckless approach moves the already impossible task of AI safety and ethics teams beyond comprehension. The manic race to get products to market adds fuel to the established mantra: move fast and break things.
When everyone is responsible, no one is, but instead of tightening controls, governments inexplicably call for greater freedom.
This abdication makes the current AI strategy so dangerous. You can understand an individual opting for an Occam’s Razor approach of taking one position and ignoring everything else, but not an industry or a government.
Promoting the idea that AI is good for business because of labour savings and increased GDP is the most critical indicator for the economy, collapses under the simplest debate. As does the we’ll fix it later approach. The industry is approaching this like a game, but this is humanity’s future, and our control is disappearing fast.
On the plus side, the industry has played all its cards; so when it comes to values, it can’t say – ‘we wouldn’t do that’. On every occasion, corporations have put profit, power and control ahead of what’s best for society. As a movement, we use evidence to show how far we are apart, and most critically, justify why we need to take control.
I’ve used two blueprints to get thoughts down. These are all visual; they stem from mind maps and provide the ideal base for infographics at a later stage. Increasingly, we’re reading less than ever, with many of us falling into the TLDR camp – Too Long Didn’t Read. We have to embrace that, and the blueprints give us a starting point.
