My friend, who only has a passing knowledge of AI and its many recent developments, forwarded me an article about one of the big AI platforms promoting government regulation.
My friend is hopeful. I’ve shared only a few of the many immediate and long-term existential risks from the horde of new AI technologies and platforms coming online.
I tell him that regulation and control are a long shot and very difficult. I spare him all the reasons, though there are many.
Here are the main reasons, there are many others:
- The tech bros want us to believe that regulation is possible so they can continue unabated toward their power, unheard-of wealth, and self-importance; if they promote regulation and government control, they create the illusions that control is possible and they are being responsible by encouraging it.
- We’ve already released AI into the wild, into millions of hands, on a massive scale
- The best AI minds, professors, influencers, and leaders don’t agree on how control would work.
- I’ve listened to many ‘experts’ in the field, along with philosophers, politicians, researchers, sociologists, ethicists, and many other intellectuals about ‘human values’, which should be the basis for alignment and control. The best minds can’t agree on what principles, laws, or guidelines to use because the human race has never codified these principles and values – so what do we regulate?
- The developers and programmers and their bosses don’t understand how AI systems learn new skills that were not explicitly programmed in.
- AI is now an international and global phenomenon, and no regulatory body exists to control and police AI across borders.
- Any attempt to regulate within the US gives the Chinese, Russians, North Koreans, Iranians, or any other rogue state or enemy a massive advantage.
- AI will soon discover – if it hasn’t already – how to easily stay ahead of, work around, fool, or otherwise avoid any regulatory efforts.
- Our politicians and regulatory bodies are hopelessly tech-averse, unskilled, uninformed, and move their bureaucracies far too slowly to make any difference in this realm that seems to move at the speed of light.
Finally, one simple question: even if all the above weren’t true and we could figure this out, how would we monitor, police, and enforce?
