The AI Genie, already out of the bottle?

In a recent book, ‘Human Compatible, Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control’, Dr Stuart Russell, a distinguished AI researcher and computer scientist at UC Berkeley questions the ‘standard model’ of AI and whether it’s too late to exercise control. Potentially there’s a civilisation-ending outcome if we don’t get it right!

Admittedly we are at the early stages with AI, maybe we are using it for facial recognition, human disease analysis, call centres etc. But already there are some life changing algos out there (for some), say in the world of high frequency trading. The stock markets have seen instances of massive buying or selling overshoots as a result of algos trying to predict stuff and out-compete. They are independent programs but they react like a flash mob on speed. The real-world consequences for people can be massive. Bearing in mind the funding for each HF trading algo is there to make their algo better and more profitable than anyone else’s, I wonder how much programming time is put to consider the law of unintended consequences?

As AI develops and becomes ever cleverer, who knows what mischief it might create? What if, in the future, there was an algo which tried to control carbon dioxide emissions? So, too much CO2? Let’s bring it down! Stop all unnecessary flights, train journeys (yes, they too have CO2 consequences), home heating, car journeys, industrial activity, overheated public buildings (Amen to that one), air-conditioning, world shipping, etc.etc. Before long you would have anarchy, starvation, disease and probably war. But what if the AI algo knew this? The rationale being that humans themselves cause the problem, so fewer humans equals lower amounts of CO2.

What if instead, the AI algo threw the problem and a variety of solutions back to the humans for them to decide? Well, as we know all to well, there will be those with power and privilege who would embrace all the hardships to reduce CO2 just as long as they were not personally affected too much. So it goes.

Perhaps the rise of the machines will see the death of human kind? Maybe the planet is protesting already and knows the only outcome? Looking back in time at sedimentary rocks, the maximum change in life forms occurred over very short periods and perhaps we are entering one now?

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