Last week I asked whether AI is a bubble, boon or bane. My answers were, in order, “up to a point, yes, and yes”. Now, I want to consider the last query, about “banes” more deeply. The issues I will consider are: just how dangerous is AI, what should we do to contain it and will any form of regulation work? My main conclusions will be that it is definitely dangerous, we should certainly try to regulate it, and yet, in all probability, the attempt will fail.Some have told me I have no right to comment because I am no expert. Others argue that we must embrace whatever technology gives us, because it is the source of economic growth. Both views are wrong. A democracy is a shared political project. We all have a right to participate in debates on how to manage dangerous new technologies.
This was true when the atomic bomb was invented. It is also true of AI, which will have far more complex, yet also perilous, consequences. Moreover, the purported right to decide such things claimed by some tech titans was surely lost after the huge damage done by social media to the young and the public good of sound information.
Is the comparison between AI and nuclear weapons unreasonable? No, because the former might also bring great harms. These fall into three rough categories: a collapse in fundamental human values; some huge specific dangers; and widespread disruption.