GENUINE CONCERNS OVER ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SHOULD BE HEEDED

BRING IN REGULATION TO CURB UNCERTAINLY ABOUT OUR FUTURE IN AI AGE

By Anjan Roy

There’s nothing artificial about the concern over what devastations artificial intelligence (AI) could wreck upon humankind. At four different and distinct layers these concerns are being articulated, though at times denied by some uninformed know-it-alls, like Donald Trump, the US president.

First and the most serious of the concerns are those who really know about artificial intelligence. The leaders of the industry themselves are expressing their deep worries about what AI could unleash.

Three of the most knowledgeable industry leaders have now come out openly expressing their views about the capabilities of artificial intelligence and more particularly, the course AI is taking. The fear is that AI might in sometime even surpass their creators and work to their devastation and ultimate destruction. 

Open AI’s Sam Altman, who had created the Chat GPT models and their extensions, have publicly stated his fear that at the present rate of development of AI, things might soon come to pass that computers develop their own network and talk to each other independently of humans. 

In a scenario of that kind, the AI of interlinked computers can have super-human intelligence and can independently function. With that capacity these AI interfaces could work towards utter destruction of humanity by creating biological weapons, to disrupting useful computers networks. It is not only Sam Altman who is scared of this possibility, but also Elon Musk, who has his own AI company xAI, and who has also underscored the need for regulation of AI industry. 

And now, one of the most powerful AI players, Anthropic, and its CEO, Dario Amodei, has stated that the pace of development of AI must be regulated on the basis of some understanding among the leading industry players and the government, to put a break on further development of AI. It is like calling for government led regulation of an industry from the leaders of that industry. 

Trump has debunked these industry leaders as well as their demand for government-backed regulations as unprecedented in the history of industry. He has peremptorily discarded the fears and stated that what was needed was a “high IQ” US president like him to prevent such disasters from happening. 

This can at best be a fool’s paradise, in the face of informed opinion.  

Others in the industry, like Satya Nadella of Microsoft has also urged regulation and a brake on the speed of development of AI. The views have been echoed by Bill Gates, founder and former chief executive of Microsoft, have also joined in the debate. 

Their calls for regulation of AI have coloured the views of investors in the AI companies. There are reports of sharp falls in the valuation of AI company shares. The secondary market investors are now wondering if the industry leaders themselves are calling for regulation of AI companies and their future core work programmes, then what future for these companies. 

Share valuation has dropped sharply in most of the leading AI companies and the market is witnessing a sort of disenchantment with what was previously the AI boom. While prices of AI scrip were sky-rocketing earlier, these are now crashing. New investors will not enter the space and therefore funds for future investments and growth will also get crimped. 

Never mind all that scares about AI, the politicians, above all, Donald Trump, US president, remain nonchalant. He does not want the American AI industry to slow down a bit, because that can give American AI’s chief antagonist, its counterpart AI industry in China, the leeway to develop and get into a commanding position. 

That is being equated with national security, and Trump does not want any compromise on that. American industry should be on top and Chinese cannot be allowed to steal a march over its American counterpart, per Trump. Hence, his describing the concerns of industry leaders as scare-mongering, 

Trump wants American AI to fire on all its engines. American AI must come out on top, Trump urges and China cannot be allowed to get the better of the US. That would be like conceding a competition which would define the new industrial age. For him, America cannot lose its AI battle to China and concede defeat in this coming new age shaped by AI.

Politics and diplomacy can make strange bedfellows. In this view about the threats from development of AI, America’s arch enemy, China, is on the same page. Xi Jinping, president of China, almost echoing his Yankee counterpart, has discarded fears about AI and has couched his response to these perceived threats as examples of “fear mongering”. 

In language of platitudes, Xi has urged an open AI regime in which these products should be developed to benefit the whole of humankind for its better and faster development. Like everything the Chinese present when it is wishing to draw and steal from others, China is framing its responses in the most altruistic narrative. Behind this smokescreen lie China’s moves for taking the key solutions from others for free and then develop the Chinese specific applications against their opaque bamboo curtains. 

All that China is seeking are the crucial semiconductors and chips and the AI tools as yet not available to the Chinese for deploying in their defence and security apparatus for pushing forward the Chinese script in the rest of the world. 

The rest of the world — America and China apart — should beware the words of the AI professionals and adopt a stand. India for example should give its plans for massive data banks that are crucial for AI development a hard look. (IPA Service)