AI news got my attention when Dr. Jeffrey Hinton resigned from Google. The “Godfather of AI” wanted to speak publicly about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.
“It’s hard to understand how we can prevent the bad guys from exploiting it,” he says. TRUE? I thought the downside of AI was that it would drive teachers crazy by creating essays for unmotivated students.
What am I missing? Apparently there are many. I started getting emails telling me how AI could impact healthcare. And how does it affect veterinarians? Then there are offers on how you can ‘create’ a song in the style of a famous musician in just a few seconds. To see how AI chatbots work, I decided to try out his ChatGPT from Microsoft-backed OpenAI. I asked you to write an article about me. The results were pretty exhaustive, but not entirely accurate given the number of individuals with the same name as mine.
It was clear that we needed to learn more about AI. I looked for information on the net. It was an eye opener. Amazingly, AI learning is everywhere: college degrees, graduate certificates, and online courses. AI environments are only in the early stages of development. Soon there will be vast numbers of AI experts designing new applications for technologies we can’t even imagine yet.
The rise of a new generation of highly capable AI chatbots such as ChatGPT has heightened concerns that artificial intelligence systems will outsmart humans. No wonder 1,000 active AI researchers recently called for a six-month moratorium on training new powerful AI systems. Their concerns about the risks to society and humanity are justified.
Congress is currently considering a range of legislative actions to regulate AI. My first reaction was why Congress exists in this area. After all, how many of our elected representatives know the basics of AI? skepticism has changed.
I have never connected AI with a nucleus. Pay more attention to warnings from Microsoft and Google executives that “mitigating the risk of AI-induced extinction should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” maybe I should have paid.
Even more frightening was the recent headline, “Artificial Intelligence Is Endangered, Experts Speak With New Warnings.” I thought that the destruction of mankind by AI was a terrible sci-fi movie and not a realistic threat.
Other countries, such as Australia, China, France, Italy, Japan, and Spain, are also racing to develop AI regulations. The European Union plans to approve an AI law later this year. I no longer question the adequacy of Congressional involvement.
But where are we in this process? We are “seeking input on regulation,” according to Reuters. This refers to the Biden administration saying it is seeking public comment on the potential accountability of AI systems. It also cites recently introduced legislation creating an AI task force tasked with identifying how best to mitigate threats to “privacy, civil liberties and due process.”
Do you think any of them would be fast? I didn’t think so. We need Congress to do something, and NOW! The time for a major overhaul of how we think about AI is long past. Dear ones, we are now witnessing the beginning of changes that humanity has never experienced before. Call your elected officials about AI and sound the alarm about the urgency.
Please contact Deborah Levine, author, trainer/coach and editor of American Diversity Report at deborah@diversityreport.com.
