Musk's anti-Semitic AI blunders reveal a deeply unsettling truth
I have always said that AI is most definitively part of our future and has the potential for great benefits – but we must be very careful to mitigate the risks, not see AI as sentient, and understand and accept that AI can and will accelerate bias.
The pace of development of these systems is impressive but also concerning, as there is a real risk that we cannot keep up with that progress. In fact, the reality is that we need AI systems to monitor AI systems and a human in the loop.
The truth is, if nobody knows how these AIs work and what data it is being fed, then nobody can anticipate what they will do either until they switch it on and wait for it to churn out stuff.
My first job after leaving school was as a computer programmer. I've always been fascinated by technology, and while the rapid developments in AI excite me, they also deepen my commitment to ensuring we protect people from the potentially devastating impacts it could have on their lives.
Which is why I led on the issue when I was a member of the science and technology committee and now as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on AI.
This goes far beyond anti-Semitic comments online: in a world where both governments and AI companies are pushing to integrate AI through every aspect of public life, this unreliability could prove costly. Unless we understand the different types of AI – which is now an unhelpful collective term.
As AIs become essential to critical infrastructure, from healthcare to energy and transportation, the consequences of unpredicted behaviour will worsen to lost lives and economic devastation. And with the ongoing integration of AI into defence, the failures will become catastrophic. This is why it is imperative that we focus on guardrails.
Top experts like Geoffrey Hinton and even the chief executives of AI companies have warned that AI poses a risk of human extinction, akin to pandemics and nuclear war. This risk does not come from the misbehaving chatbots of today, but from the faster-than-human thought process AI systems that AI companies are rushing to develop.
My question is, if we haven't addressed the injustices of the past, how will we cope with the injustices of the future?
If we want to leverage AI for progress and growth safely, we need to know how AI works, and ensure that it will not misfire catastrophically in our hands. This is why it is crucial for us all that we work together globally to legislate how AI is used and what it can be used for.
The Government has a golden opportunity to do this: introduce binding regulations on the predictability of AI. And we need an ethical system.
Such guarantees will be easy to provide for narrow and specialised AIs – such as those advancing science and medicine, which will boost growth, innovation, and public services.
On the other hand, the general AIs that are given more agency and latitude will have to be constructed differently, in a way that ensures they will stay under control. What we can control is guardrails and this should be central.
Having AI systems in the hands of billionaires is a worry.
So a Grok incident today could tomorrow be an AI incident that can take control of critical infrastructure, cause substantial damage or even launch nukes.
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The Guardian
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