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Editor’s Note: KSL.com examines the rise of artificial intelligence technology tools such as ChatGPT, the opportunities and risks it poses, and how they may affect different aspects of our daily lives. Part of a series.
Salt Lake City — Artificial intelligence is likely to live on, and technology is only going to get better.
This was part of a recent panel discussion hosted by the Utah Policy Innovation Lab to discuss the pros and cons of rapidly emerging technologies and how states can harness the power of advanced artificial intelligence. That’s the assumption behind it.
The panel includes two state legislators, state agency leaders, and several CEOs from technology and AI companies, all of whom believe AI will significantly enhance productivity in business, governance and academia. advertised as possible.
While the model that supports software like ChatGPT is still far from perfect, innovation could rapidly improve artificial intelligence and bring significant advances to research and business in the process.
“By using AI to help solve many forms of disease, some predict that cancer will be cured within the next five to 10 years,” said Matthew Paul, CEO of GTF. ‘ said. “I think cancer is definitely on the list. I also think that from a geopolitical point of view, this could be our salvation.”
Margaret Woolley Busse, executive director of the Utah Department of Commerce, said companies that successfully integrate new technologies could see dramatic increases in productivity. One bank in China said productivity per employee rose to about $16 million after introducing AI, adding: “It’s just amazing that it can be this extreme.”
Such an AI-driven transformation would be “very disruptive” for workers and businesses, she said. “But I think the scale is really amazing.”
With AI potentially disruptive in a variety of areas, some lawmakers are calling for the best governments can do to prevent the most damaging outcomes without limiting the positive transformation technology can bring about. We are already considering how.
education and development
ChatGPT’s release last year raised concerns that a more sophisticated language model would automate the majority of white-collar workers. While the panelists did not dismiss the possibility of disruption, some said the outlook was not so simple or so bleak.
“This is clearly a game changer,” said Alan Fuller, Utah’s chief information officer. “I have heard that AI will not replace doctors, but doctors with AI will be replaced by doctors without AI, and I am sure you will too. ”
Piste.AI CEO Nick Pelican warned against getting caught up in the “hype cycle” around AI. “People are telling me that Skynet, The Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, it’s only a few months away. So… take it all. Take it with a grain of salt.” He said it’s important to prepare students and workers for a future in which the use of AI will become more common.
Panelists raised the idea of creating AI curricula in higher education to help future workers understand how to incorporate technology into their careers. Alex Lawrence, an associate professor at Weber State University, said that while it may be daunting for students to face a cross-industry “tectonic shift,” “the simplest thing I can say is, do your job.” It’s this willingness to be open-minded that we have.” has changed dramatically. “
User privacy
Senator Kirk Callimore (R-Sandy) spoke of two possible avenues for government regulation of AI. It’s about protecting user privacy and combating AI-created disinformation. He clarified that the proposal is not an official recommendation but could lead to concrete policies in the future.
Online privacy has become an increasingly important issue across the political sphere, and the privacy of minors on social media was a key part of the Utah Legislature’s big tech platform regulation in past Congresses.
Callimore said AI models could quickly collect large amounts of personal information from users, and users were made aware that the prompts and other data they entered could be stored and used by the company. said it might not. Utah has several privacy laws in place, but there is no comprehensive way to address privacy and artificial intelligence, he said.
“Even if you’re a small start-up, but you’re starting to use AI, and that model has data on hundreds of thousands of people, how do you protect privacy in it?” He said. “So while we don’t yet have a complete strategy on how to incorporate privacy into the law to ensure that our users and Utah citizens are protected, we are seriously considering it.”
“We don’t want to stop the industry from growing, but we need to understand what the guardrails are and what the rules companies must follow,” he continued.
Privacy laws and other regulations will likely need to be put in place at the federal and even international level, but Utah, like the first state to pass major social media regulations, is well positioned to lead the way. There is, said Carriemore.
“States like Utah are ready to deal with these kinds of issues. We have the expertise, and the entrepreneurial spirit, to set these kinds of models.It’s going to be ubiquitous,” he said.
Busse said the rise of social media and other online spaces has “essentially freed up” business models for selling user data.
“I think we are just now waking up to what it is and how we have given up so much autonomy by allowing all data to be collected,” she said. said.
In many ways, it was too late to take back control of personal data from big companies, as personal data is “hardwired” into the fabric of the industry, and AI will make it easier for companies to analyze and use all that data. It will only, he said.
“So, in my opinion, we have to get over this issue now,” Busse said.
Will AI undermine social trust?
The internet has long been a safe haven for conspiracy theories and outright lies, but AI can make it even harder to trust what you see online.
Fuller said the AI image generator could be used to undermine elections or undermine the trust of government officials, saying that state lawmakers in the midst of a drug deal could be completely destroyed. We presented the hypothesis of a fake image.
“It’s a generated image, but with our human eyes…we’re looking at the picture and we’re assuming it’s worth 1,000 words,” he said. rice field.
The generated images are already confusing some online users. An image of former President Donald Trump resisting arrest went viral on Twitter, but the creator of the image was quick to point out that it wasn’t real.
On the other hand, Busse warned that exposure to generated images, text, or recordings can desensitize you to real news events of concern.
“That creates a kind of ‘wolves that don’t cry’ problem,” she says, noting that the proliferation of misinformation makes it easy to dismiss things as “fake news.”
Whether using blockchain or other technologies, states need to consider the origin of information and how to verify whether it was created by AI, Callimore said.
“One of the important things for the state to do is to set the parameters in a structured way so that we can verify the reliability of whatever data we are looking at,” he said. Stated.
keep pace
As models become more sophisticated, AI progress could accelerate further, which means governments will have to do more work to keep up.
Busse said the word that often comes to mind when he thinks about regulation and education about AI is “agility,” but he admits that this is often a departure from how governments usually do things.
“In this job, I thought a lot about regulation, and in the beginning it was often said that what people wanted was ‘reasonable and trustworthy.’ What they really need is relevance.” she said. “And it’s hard to do, because when you pass a law and you think, ‘Okay, that’s it,’ things change that way.”
Rep. Jefferson Moss (R, Saratoga Springs), who previously spoke to KSL.com about the future of AI technology, said various branches of government work well with government agencies and other stakeholders across the state. Utah said it was poised to respond.
“This is moving very quickly and there are so many moving parts. “I think we are in the best position,” he said.
