he primary value of AI and ChatGPT is to give us something to talk about
besides Trump, Biden, Ukraine, and the economy, all of which are just too
depressing to contemplate. Give us anything else—we'll even take
Barbie—if we can just stop hearing about Meghan and Ben Affleck.
Foreign Affairs, the magazine that practically has a patent on the word “must” (disclaimer: I still have two of their unusable ceramic coffee mugs and one of their leaky plastic travel mugs), has a 6,190 word article salivating about how we must, must, must regulate artificial intelligence.
[O]nce released, AI models can and will be everywhere. And it will take just one malign or "breakout" model to wreak havoc. For that reason, regulating AI cannot be done in a patchwork manner. There is little use in regulating AI in some countries if it remains unregulated in others. Because AI can proliferate so easily, its governance can have no gaps.
Also, let's not forget the precautionary principle, which worked so well with the theory of global warming:
Precautionary: First, rules should do no harm.
An early instantiation of AI
The article goes on about how all these new rules must be ‘agile’ and flexible enough to evolve as quickly as the technologies do. They must include all actors, not just governments. They must be comprehensive, and they must be carefully targeted because, the authors say, AI is a “general purpose technology that poses multidimensional threats.”
Their goal: “to design a new governance framework fit for this unique technology”:
If global governance of AI is to become possible, the international system must move past traditional conceptions of sovereignty and welcome technology companies to the table. These actors may not derive legitimacy from a social contract, democracy, or the provision of public goods, but without them, effective AI governance will not stand a chance. This is one example of how the international community will need to rethink basic assumptions about the geopolitical order. But it is not the only one.
Hey, stop snoring back there, this is important!
I say, go for it. There is no such thing as artificial intelligence. What they're calling "AI" today is barely more intelligent than Clippy. It's more evidence for my theory that the twenty-first century is shaping up to be the “fake century.” We have fake news, fake women, a fake legal system, fake fact-checkers, fake comedians, fake college studies departments, fake travel mugs, and now fake artificial intelligence.
ChatGPT might put some people out of a job. It won't be the car mechanics, or the plumbers, who possess reliable concrete skills. It won't be the scientists, engineers, lawyers, and computer programmers, who need accurate information—the one thing chatbots can't provide. No, the ones who will lose their jobs are the ones for whom truth is at best irrelevant and at worst a hindrance: news reporters, bureaucrats, politicians, and opinion writers, for whom words are just a means to an end; and for those whose livelihood depends on creating things that aren't real, like actors, musicians, and artists.
If politicians wanted to do something useful, they'd look at real problems like antibiotic resistance. Rotating our antibiotics as we rotate crops would restore the ability of the old antibiotics to kill bacteria within ten or twenty years, and it would save lives. But it's understandably easier to make rules against something that's not real than to make hard choices about something that is.
Maybe the bureaucrats and politicians are terrified of AI because it threatens their livelihood. Or maybe they're just doing the only thing they know how to do: invent rules that prevent people from doing their jobs until the bureaucrats get their cut. Or maybe all the screaming for governance of AI is for the best: if we're condemned to live among useless bureaucrats, at least let them invent rules about things that don't exist.
aug 21 2023, 4:46 am
