FROLITICKS

More and more reports are surfacing based on how to deal with rising issues with respect to the evolution, if not revolution surrounding artificial intelligence (A.I.).  Alarmed by the power of A.I., Europe, the U.S., Canada and others are trying to respond — but the technology is evolving more rapidly than their policies.  As a result of an international safety summit held in November 2023 in the UK, the Bletchley Declaration was released by 29 countries attending the summit.  The declaration noted that: “Substantial risks may arise from potential intentional misuse or unintended issues of control relating to alignment with human intent.  These issues are in part because those capabilities are not fully understood and are therefore hard to predict.  We are especially concerned by such risks in domains such as cybersecurity and biotechnology, as well as where frontier A.I. systems may amplify risks such as disinformation.”  The summit also noted that the many risks arising from A.I. are inherently international in nature, and so are best addressed through international cooperation.  History suggests that this may be very difficult to achieve.

The examination of issues surrounding A.I. has been ongoing since the turn of this century.  Today, A.I. systems are already deployed across many domains of daily life including housing, employment, transport, education, health, accessibility, and justice.  Their use is likely to rapidly increase.  Everyone agrees that A.I. can have major benefits when employed in many sectors, helping humans to better deal with societal issues including those related to public services such as health and education, food security, in science, clean energy, biodiversity and the climate.

The most discussed A.I. issue is related to the potential loss of employment and displacement of existing jobs and their workers.  A 2016 study from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimateds that 9 percent of jobs would be completely displaced in the next two decades.  The authors noted that many more jobs will be transformed, if not eliminated.  Opposition over the use of A.I. has already surfaced in the entertainment industry, especially in the music and television/film sectors.  Last year, there was a major strike among American writers concerned over the use of A.I. in the industry, and many artists in the music business have also expressed similar concerns.  There apparently are no sectors where A.I. will not have a significant impact.  There are those supporters who argue that the technology simply represents another tool to assist workers in their daily work, and the displacement issues have been overrated and exaggerated.  I tend to disagree.

Governments however believe that, despite many unknowns, further investment in A.I. research and development is needed.  Like many new technologies, the approach will most likely involve incremental government legislation as the continuing use of A.I. unfolds.  This was the approach taken in response to past new technologies, including the arrival of the Internet and its accompanying new telecommunications and laser technologies.  Having personally seen the growth in the use of laser technologies in numerous sectors, I saw the introduction of regulations to address health and safety concerns for example.  Suddenly, laser technologies were employed in the health care sector, construction industry, semiconducting chip manufacturing, consumer electronics, information technology, science, law enforcement,  entertainment, and of course the military.  Fiber-optic communication using lasers is a key technology in modern communications, allowing services such as the Internet.  As the technology evolved, governments and standards associations in the U.S. and Canada introduced occupational health and safety requirements through regulation.  With each new development, regulations and standards were updated incrementally as required to protect those workers and consumers using laser technologies.

The general impression that one gets from reading recent reports on the impact of A.I. is that a similar incremental approach will be required in order to provide for the public’s protection and to deal with emerging issues.  This will be no easy task given the degree to which the private sector is advancing A.I. systems.  The fear is that there will be a lagging effect wherein governments will not be able to keep up with the projected rapid advances in A.I. and its uses.  This particular aspect is definitely the most important overall issue for societies today.