{"id":93161,"date":"2021-10-30T17:14:42","date_gmt":"2021-10-30T21:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=93161"},"modified":"2021-10-30T17:14:42","modified_gmt":"2021-10-30T21:14:42","slug":"a-i-is-not-a-ok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=93161","title":{"rendered":"A.I. Is Not A-OK"},"content":{"rendered":"

DNYUZ<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The first time\u00a0I interviewed Eric Schmidt<\/a>, a dozen years ago when he was the C.E.O. of Google, I had a simple question about the technology that has grown capable of spying on and monetizing all our movements, opinions, relationships and tastes.<\/p>\n

\u201cFriend or foe?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe claim we\u2019re friends,\u201d Schmidt replied coolly.<\/p>\n

Now that the former Google executive has a book out Tuesday on \u201cThe Age of AI<\/a>,\u201d written with Henry Kissinger and Daniel Huttenlocher, I wanted to ask him the same question about A.I.: \u201cFriend or foe?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA.I. is imprecise, which means that it can be unreliable as a partner,\u201d he said when we met at his Chelsea office. \u201cIt\u2019s dynamic in the sense that it\u2019s changing all the time. It\u2019s emergent and does things that you don\u2019t expect. And, most importantly, it\u2019s capable of learning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be everywhere. What does an A.I.-enabled best friend look like, especially to a child? What does A.I.-enabled war look like? Does A.I. perceive aspects of reality that we don\u2019t? Is it possible that A.I. will see things that humans cannot comprehend?\u201d<\/p>\n

I agree with\u00a0Elon Musk<\/a>\u00a0that when we build A.I. without a kill switch, we are \u201csummoning the demon\u201d and that humans could end up,\u00a0as Steve Wozniak said<\/a>, as the family pets. (If we\u2019re lucky.)<\/p>\n

Talking about the alarms raised by the likes of\u00a0Musk and Stephen Hawking<\/a>, Schmidt said that \u201cthey think that by unleashing A.I., eventually, you\u2019ll end up with a robot overlord that\u2019s 10 or 100 or 1,000 times smarter than the humans. My answer is different. I think all the evidence is that these A.I. systems are going to think, not like humans, but they\u2019re going to be very smart. We\u2019re going to have to coexist.\u201d<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t think Siri and Alexa are going to kill us one night?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d he said. \u201cBut they might become your child\u2019s best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opinions on A.I. are wildly divergent. Jaron Lanier, the father of virtual reality,\u00a0rolls his eyes<\/a>\u00a0at the digerati in Silicon Valley obsessed with the \u201cscience-fiction fantasy\u201d of A.I.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can sometimes become a giant, false god,\u201d he told me. \u201cYou\u2019ve got these nerdy guys who have an awful reputation for how they treat women, who get to be the life creators. \u2018You women with your petty little biological wombs can\u2019t stand up to us. We\u2019re making the big life here. We\u2019re the supergods of the future.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

We have known for a while that Silicon Valley is taking us down the drain. Preposterous claims that once could not have gotten traction \u2014 on everything from Democratic pedophilia rings to rigged elections to vaccine conspiracy theories \u2014 now spread at the speed of light. Teenage girls can be sent spiraling into depression by the glossy, deceptive world of Instagram, owned by the manipulative and greedy company formerly known as Facebook.<\/p>\n

Schmidt said an Oxford student told him, about social media poison, \u201cThe union of boredom and anonymity is dangerous.\u201d Especially at the intersection of addiction and envy.<\/p>\n

The question of whether we will lose control to A.I. may be pass\u00e9. Technology is already manipulating us.<\/p>\n

Schmidt admits that the lack of foresight among the lords of the cloud about where technology was headed was \u201cfoolish.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll say, 10 years ago, when I worked really hard on these social networks, maybe this is just na\u00efvet\u00e9, but we never thought that governments would use them against citizens, like in 2016, with interference from the Russians.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t think it would then stitch these special interest groups together with these violently strong belief systems. No one ever discussed it. I don\u2019t want to make the same mistake again with a new foundational technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that\u00a0the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence<\/a>, which he chaired earlier this year, concluded that America is still \u201ca little bit ahead of China\u201d in the technology race but China is \u201coverinvesting against us.\u201d The authors write that they are most worried about other countries developing A.I.-facilitated weapons with \u201csubstantial destructive potential\u201d that \u201cmay be able to adapt and learn well beyond their intended targets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing for us to look at between the U.S. and China is to make sure that there\u2019s no \u2018Dr. Strangelove\u2019 scenario, a launch on a warning, to make sure there\u2019s time for human decision making,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s imagine you\u2019re on a ship in the future and the little computer system says to the captain, \u2018You have 24 seconds before you\u2019re dead because the hypersonic missile is coming at you. You need to press this button now.\u2019 You want to trust the A.I., but because of its imprecise nature, what if it makes a mistake?\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked if he thought Facebook could leave its troubles behind by changing its name to Meta.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is, what do you now call FAANG stocks? MAANG?\u201d he said of the biggest tech stocks \u2014 Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google. \u201cGoogle changed its name to Alphabet, and yet, Google was still Google.\u201d<\/p>\n

And what\u2019s with\u00a0that creepy metaverse<\/a>\u00a0Zuckerberg is trying to lure us into?<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the people who talk about metaverses are talking about worlds that are more satisfying than the current world \u2014 you\u2019re richer, more handsome, more beautiful, more powerful, faster. So, in some years, people will choose to spend more time with their goggles on in the metaverse. And who gets to set the rules? The world will become more digital than physical. And that\u2019s not necessarily the best thing for human society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schmidt said that his book poses questions that cannot yet be answered.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for us, we won\u2019t know the answers until it is too late.<\/p>\n

The post\u00a0A.I. Is Not A-OK\u00a0<\/a>appeared first on\u00a0New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

___
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