On July 6th and 7th, the United Nations hosted the sixth annual AI for Good Global Summit. Panel “The Next Wave of AI for Good – Towards 2030”, where generative AI experts will educate the next generation about the risks it poses today, and what it can do Pointed out how, how the global community should come together for a solution. regulatory and social issues.
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Generative AI risks include misinformation and unequal access to data
“The biggest short-term risk is [of generative AI] is deliberately creating misinformation using large-scale language tools to disrupt democracy and markets,” said an entrepreneur and former professor of psychology and neuroscience at New York University. said Gary Marcus, chief executive officer of the newly formed Trusted AI Acceleration Center.
Marcus believes generative AI also has some advantages. He suggested that automated coding could ease the burden on overworked programmers.
Wendell Wallach, co-director of the AI and Equality Project at the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, said inequality between rich countries in the Northern Hemisphere and poor countries in the Southern Hemisphere (the so-called Global North and Global South) is a problem. pointed out that it is exacerbating By generated AI. For example, the World Economic Forum published his January 2023 blog post, noting that generative AI is primarily manufactured and used in the Global North.
Generative AI comes from training data in different languages. However, the languages with the most speakers naturally produce the most data. Therefore, people who speak languages that generate large amounts of data are likely to find useful applications for generative AI, Marcus said.
“People who work in languages with a lot of resources and a lot of money can do things that people who speak other languages can’t do, which increases inequality,” he says.
See: Generative AI Worries Artists Too About copyrighted material. (Tech Republic)
Preparing the Next Generation for a World of Generative AI
Karishma Muthukumar, a graduate of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, and an expert in using AI to improve healthcare, says he listens to children learning about generative AI in their peers and at home, not in school. pointed out.
She proposed a curriculum that could teach the use of artificial intelligence.
“It will take intergenerational dialogue and pooling of talent to find a curriculum that really works,” Muthukumar said.
Safe Development of Generative AI Starts with Community
Many panelists talked about the importance of community and ensuring all parties have a voice in the conversation about generative AI. That means not just governments and businesses, but “scientists, social scientists, ethicists and people in civil society,” Marcus said.
“Global platform like ITU [International Telecommunication Union, a UN agency] And conferences like this are starting to make us feel more connected, helping AI feel more connected to humans,” Muthukumar said.
“My hope is that part of what will come out of this meeting that we have been holding over the past few years is the realization that this is on the agenda, and that realization gets through to our leaders. , is for them to start to realize that this is not what it is. It’s an issue that we should ignore,” Wallach said.
Regarding the ethical issues of using generative AI to solve global problems, Muthukumar suggested that this issue raises other issues. “What is good? How do we define it? The UN Sustainable Development Goals are a great framework and a great starting point for finding sustainable goals and what we can achieve.” It’s a dot.”
How AI intersects with global concerns about resource allocation
Wallach noted that just because a lot of money is being poured into generative AI companies, it doesn’t necessarily mean that AI will solve the problems proposed by the AI for Good summit.
“One of the problems with the value structure inherent in the digital economy is that there are usually winners in every field,” he said. “And the capital gains go to those of us who have the winning stake. This is very problematic in terms of allocating resources to reach the Sustainable Development Goals.
He suggests that companies developing generative AI and other technological solutions to global problems “should also take some responsibility for improving the downsides and trade-offs of their solutions.” [they] I am choosing ”
AI needs to ease tensions between innovation and regulation
The United Nations was also the subject of discussion. Wallach said the UN’s efforts to bring stakeholders together to discuss global issues were laudable, but the organization had a “mixed reputation” and was “dissonant among nations”. pointed out that it cannot be done.
But he hopes it will be beneficial to reach a wider audience with conversations about generative AI and ethics.
What ethical considerations in AI mean can also vary depending on the context. “For example, the notion of fairness in AI varies greatly depending on its application,” says Haniya Mahf, global AI ethicist at AI and machine learning software company DataRobot and member of the US National AI Advisory Board. Moudian said in his email interview with TechRepublic. . “Applied to recruitment systems, fairness can mean equal representation, whereas in the context of facial recognition, fairness can refer to consistent accuracy.”
Marcus believes government regulation is an important part of ensuring a future where generative AI works profitably.
“There is currently a tension between promoting so-called innovation and regulation,” he said. “I think it’s the wrong tension. We can actually encourage innovation through regulation that tells Silicon Valley that it needs to make AI trustworthy.”
He compared the generative AI boom to the social media boom. In the social media boom, companies grew faster than the surrounding regulations.
“If we use the card correctly, we can seize this moment when people, both in individual countries like the United States where I am from, and on a global level, realize that something needs to be done. If you don’t, you’re going to have a tough year,” Marcus said.
