AI – Bane or Boon?

Collins Dictionary named “AI” as the Collins Word of the Year 2023.  Historical gathering of global leaders from 28 countries and technocrats in AI Safety Summit hosted by British Government unanimously signed Bletchley Declaration that resolved to work together in an inclusive manner to ensure human-centric, trustworthy and Responsible AI.  European Union is negotiating drafting AI Act by end of the year.  An Executive Order on AI is expected from the Oval office in White House.  There are already several laws in China governing AI.  The race is on to rein in AI.  One bright side of the global efforts on understanding and regulating development and use of AI is that unlike other global concerns, like climate change, there is lot of unanimity on the urgency to collectively address potential risks from AI.  This is indeed good news as whatever risks that AI would pose transcend borders and thus needs global architecture of governance in absence of which AI’s unbridled use can cause threat to humanity cannot be checked.

The question is whether AI actually could be existential threat for humanity as it is made out to be? Many experts tend to believe so.  Even common people are not so much excited about benefits than they are wary of its possible deadly abuses.  Their fear naturally stem from what scary things they read and hear around generative AI.  However, there are no clear answers to what are the things about AI that the world should worry about or how AI as it advances could be used as a potent tool of destruction and malfeasance.

But it is heartening to see that the world is coming together now than later as it is always good to pre-empt than to react so as not to be caught off guard.  When there is so much of loud noise about possible abuses and threats from AI and when even technology giants are lobbying for some sort of regulations to check reckless use of AI lends some traction to speculations of doom and gloom around Artificial Intelligence.

The world was caught unaware of what harm social media and internet could cause to social and political fabric of nations.  The hatred and falsehood and deep fake it could spread to stir violence and radicalise people. Pit humans against human.  We have this case study to be cautious about any new technology that is round the corner.   So much information is available on internet that anyone can make a bomb. Similarly, can we discount possibilities of using large language models to create deadly pathogens?  After all, ‘intelligence’ in AI is “artificial’ unlike human intelligence that is generated from biological brain.  The data is the brain for AI and which can so easily be manipulated by humans with ulterior motives. 

However, while the world is being cautious and rightly so, and there is need to regulate AI, but in absence of any idea on what to govern or what to regulate and how, it would be wise to not rush into kind of regulations that could slow down advances in AI that could transform lives and livelihood, the brighter side of AI.  

We already are experiencing how AI is helping in our everyday life.  In virtual assistance like Alexa or Siri, in e-commerce; fraud detection in banking system; autonomous vehicles; household appliances; in medical diagnosis and healthcare; chatbots; weather forecasting; et al.  It has become integral part of devices and applications we use daily.  Discoveries of new life-saving drugs and development of vaccines used to take years of research but the AI has made this process faster.  As the world was hit by corona virus and the Covid-19 pandemic was devastating lives across the globe and the world literally came to a grinding halt, there was no drug to cure or vaccines to protect against and to prevent the spread of COVID, it was thanks to discoveries using AI algorithms that the vaccine was developed in less than a year which probably saved millions of lives and halted pandemic.  The AI could help finding solution to the threat from climate change and global warming. 

So, just as we are dealing with so many threats to humanity – from pollution to global warming to climate change, from cybercrimes to deep fake to super bugs, we can deal with any potential threats from abuse of AI. Global efforts are already underway to deal with it.  

But the way countries are racing to erect control regimes for AI, my worry is that it could lead to an overkill and throttle innovations and discoveries that could transform the world for better.  While benefits of AI are known and threats are largely speculative, it is best to remain vigilant and invest in global research collaborations for the study of AI and its likely abuses to understand it better in terms of its impact on privacy, jobs, weaponisation and criminalisation of AI algorithms.  After such an extensive globally collaborated study, it is advisable to make rulebook accordingly.  

At the same time, initiatives like London AI Summit should be more frequent with larger participation from countries and technology companies as well as wizards to deliberate on possible guardrails against abuses of AI such that the purpose is served and yet does not create bumpers for the AI technology on its path to progress.  Also, sharing of information about how AI technology companies are managing risk is important to have better idea.      

Another thing for any efforts to rein in bad AI to be successful, global architecture is needed.  Some countries having lighter rules will defeat the purpose as AI is truly global technology that cannot be shackled to national boundaries. 

So far, global community is in consensus to find ways to regulate AI in such a way that risks are guarded against without obstructing free flow of idea and innovations.  So that Artificial Intelligence-AI- remains boon rather than becoming bane for the humanity.