Too Far Too Fast

 Warning: This content has been generated by a human

 

Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

 

Is anybody else as royally creeped out by the exploding prevalence of artificial intelligence as I am?

 

AI is already busy churning out social media posts, classical music compositions, opinion essays and literature. It’s busy creating paintings, and it powers machine-generated trolls that are persuading people how they should vote.

 

It is posting videos and engaging in conversations with unsuspecting internet users.

 

AI is busy learning about you.

 

AI is busy learning about itself.

 

Some AI systems are teaching themselves skills. They have what’s referred to as emergent properties. Robots are learning on their own. That is worrisome and scary.

 

Yoshua Bengio, who some consider the godfather of AI, is calling for a pause on developments until artificial intelligence can be carefully regulated. Experts freely admit deep learning has come too far, too fast, and as this dubious technology blisters along, government regulation hasn’t even got out of the gate.

 

Bengio just spoke before a US Senate subcommittee this week, urging legislators to regulate AI immediately and to make sure regulation is coordinated internationally. He even urged the Senate to set up laboratories to research countermeasures and penalties for criminals who will certainly violate eventual AI regulations.

 

Governments and criminal organizations will, and probably are already, using AI for nefarious causes.

 

When experts themselves are urging caution, it’s time to slam on the brakes until everyone is certain we’ve got it right.

 

I get the feeling Yoshua Bengio is freaked out by the monster he helped create.

 

I had the opportunity to interview Yoshua Bengio in 2017 on a show I hosted. The founder of MILA, Quebec’s institute of deep learning, and professor at l’Universite de Montreal, was part of a panel discussing Montreal’s reputation as a hi-tech hub.

                                                  Yoshua Bengio appears on City Life with Eric Noel & Alain Tapp

 

Today, Bengio concedes machines could have human level intelligence within five years. Can you imagine a machine that thinks the way you do?

 

Using AI, machines are already threatening democracy, swaying people in their political beliefs, spreading falsehoods.

 

People ought to be told that the content they’re digesting is machine-generated.

 

Granted, industrialized AI can have unfathomably huge benefits as much as it can have shockingly devastating consequences. It can help with health care, engineering and environmental projects, to name just a few, but it can just as effortlessly and efficiently spread poisonous disinformation and misinformation.

 

Even experts warn we don’t really know how bad it can get.

We humans must protect ourselves from this transformative technology.

 

As I was learning about AI and its increasing prevalence, I vowed not to be among AI enablers, the ones who cheer unreservedly for more artificial intelligence in their, and our, lives. There are those who encourage AI to write blogs, social media posts, share conversations, drive cars, and enhance dreams.

 

Not me. 

 

I want to drive my own car! Sue me.

 

I want privacy. I want safety. I want me.

 

I want to be in control of me. I want to be in control of what I say, do, and think. I do not want a machine thinking for me, or acting as me.

 

As I say that, I realize, naively, that it’s already too late for me. I wholeheartedly use translation apps and even as I text, my smart phone offers me a choice of words with which to finish my thought.

My smart phone has learned the names of people, organizations and acronyms I routinely refer to in my texts. My smart phone is already learning. About me.

 

Our machines are getting to know us. They’re learning our tendencies.

 

I was aghast, realizing that I am already using and even appreciating artificial intelligence. 

 

Do we care enough, do we think enough, about the ethics of our advancements? 

 

I’m really not sure. The atomic bomb. Penicillin. The internet. 

 

We’re not cloning human beings. Or, are we? 

 

There are always scientists who want to push the limits of possibility to see how far they can go, morality and ethics be damned.

 

I’m not even sure whether stem cell research has been sufficiently and ethically regulated. Has it?

 

You may be reading machine generated content, you may be involved in a machine generated conversation. 

 

Humans have never been able to leave well enough alone; it’s terrifying to think robots may develop the same flaw.

 

What’s to become of us?

 

Yet again, before it’s too late, we must save ourselves from ourselves.

 

Hasta la vista baby.