Image courtesy of wikipedia.org
My bank sent me a generic message about security upgrades to their electronic system. They left a line in their message for feedback. Mine was, “I hate change!”
Security improvements are necessary, I know, because technology changes faster than Clark Kent can shed his business suit in a telephone booth. Even the booths have changed. I do try to keep up. Yesterday, I forced myself to read an article on the many languages of computer coding. There are two main types. Imperative programming requires line-by-line instructions for the computer to follow. Functional programming uses mathematical equations that allow machines to create the steps. (“Do the Math,” by Sheon Han, Wired, July/Aug 2024, pgs. 14-15.)
Another article was an author’s confession about his excessive use of his smartphone. (“Screen Saver,” by Aaron Gordon, Wired, July/Aug 2004, pgs. 18-19.) After many attempts to curb his addiction, he decided the simplest method was to bury his gadget in his backpack to make it less accessible.
A third article, this one about Artificial Intelligence (AI), advised that the new technology had opened a Wild West where two philosophical camps were emerging. One camp feared AI’s potential for mischief and wanted government regulation. The second dreaded bureaucratic intrusion more than emerging technology. Should we have regulated the Wright brothers’ attempts at human flight for fear an airplane might crash?
As I am more likely to worry than hope, I discounted the analogy. It lacked scale. One airplane falling from the sky is a tragedy for the crew and passengers, but AI’s ability to change human history could lead to a global catastrophe. Look how gunpowder’s invention turned out.
As I am a coward, I’m drawn to the arguments of Vinod Khosla a leading voice for rules …setting a regulatory framework now could mean, literally, life or death for millions. (“Boom or Doom,” by Alex Konrad, Forbes, June/July 2004 pg. 102)
Like the man who hid his smartphone from himself, I’ve found most homo sapiens struggle to control their impulses and often without success. Money or the hope of obtaining it often poisons the well. In the early days of computing, Open-source software like Linux was the standard. People shared what they learned and developed. Then Apple and Microsoft decided to privatize their systems. That move changed the computing landscape. Whether it was for good or ill, I can’t say.
OpenAI is a new company that tried to return to the “share” model. That was before Elon Musk became a major investor. Today, the company has kept its name, but it has gone private. (Ibid, pg. 99.)
The race to dominate AI has grown to a global scale, dragging behind it a myriad of dangers. China and the United States are among the fiercest competitors. China may be a little ahead of us, in fact. It has convinced 36 countries to participate in its training sessions. The most popular among these are programs developed to control the media and internet information. Western countries worry these states will adopt Chinese norms and technologies that suppress political and civil liberties. (“China’s Alternative Order,” by Elizabeth Economy, Forbes, May/June 2024, pg. 17.)
With the genii out of the bottle, even AARP is looking to the future. For those of us who are age 50 and beyond, it offers tutorials on how to use the new technology yet protect against fraud. But technology is fluid as I’ve said. Today’s safeguards may become tomorrow’s vulnerabilities. (“AARP And Artificial Intelligence” AARP Bulletin, June 2024, pg. 36).
From my perspective, experts on both sides of the regulation argument have got it wrong. The competition isn’t between open or closed sources or China and the West. The split is within ourselves. I refer to the divide between our good intentions and self-interest.
