I am very much a beginner when it comes to using AI. Like many, I’m hearing the headlines, but don’t really have much personal experience. I know those in the tech and business world are seeing big impacts. We had some helpful orientation to the issues a few weeks ago with a guest speaker from the Faraday institute (What does AI have to do with Christianity?). But I know that others know far more than me. So if these questions are missing the point or have easy answers- please take pity on me and educate me.
1. Who is liable if I ask AI to do something legitimate, but in trying to achieve that aim AI does something illegal or damaging? With a car, the manufacturer is not liable for the accidents I have when driving, unless I prove that there is a steering fault or something similar. But with AI, I might ask AI to find information or achieve a goal that is legitimate, but the AI might do something illegal or harmful (e.g. hacking another system) to achieve that goal. Who is liable? If it is the company, I imagine that some pretty big lawsuits will come their way. If it is the individual who does not understand how the AI will work to achieve the goals, then I imagine it will make companies and individuals pretty cautious about using AI. Issues of liability seem to have held up self driving cars. Is there a reason the liability issue is not delaying AI rollout?
2. How important will it be to have an AI that really knows you (so you are stuck with one provider), or will AI’s be interchangeable? Does AI have to spend a year tracking everything you do to be able to give answers with the context and level you want? Or can a relatively compact set of instructions get any AI to give useful answers? If the former, AI is something you have to invest in order to function at a high level. If the latter, it is something you can wait till the models improve without missing out too much. And in the former, AI providers getting you hooked are gaining lifelong customers with a deep moat (and hence a high value). But in the latter, AI become a like a utility with price causing frequent switching. Is AI going to lead to Microsoft/Apple/Facebook type gains from being dominant, or a service more like broadband?
3. Can AI overcome the technological inertia affecting areas like health and education? UK healthcare is notorious for how poorly tech has been joined up. Accessing test results, booking systems, and general use of technology has lagged far behind what tech appears to make possible. You might argue the same with education. So a potential positive outcome is that AI might enable leaps over current bottlenecks, and inefficiencies. If AI simply listens and watches a class, and at the end notes children who were struggling and who get special help, without the teacher having to write notes, might more accurate pictures of children’s needs and best responses emerge? If AI enables patients to be guided smoothly through the whole treatment pathway and to give feedback where the treatment is not good, might healthcare improve substantially?
4. Will 90% of AI gains be lost to competitive AI and additional administrative sludge? If institutions and individuals all use AI, is the result that the majority of AI usage is in dealing with other AIs, with the net result being that most Ai is not actually moving things forward, but you are forced to use AI to get through the AI defences opposed to you? In the charity sector, getting skilled at getting grants is a vital skill, but you can end up with as much being spent by the charity and the donors on managing the process of getting the grant as directly on the activity of the charity. Does much of everyday AI (as opposed to top level research AI) more or less cancel out?
5. Will AI lead to a return to closed networks and in person community? People seem to want to spend much of their time in safe spaces with people they trust. If AI amplifies the existing problems with bots and scams online, does the internet become divided into a range of walled gardens, while the open internet becomes a wilderness? If AI makes trusting any online communication, even video calls being fakeable, do we return to in person meetings?
6. If Government mandated GDPR forced basically all organisations into the cloud, and then AI makes the cloud unworkable, can we sue the government? This last one is a bit cheeky. In 2001, the government encouraged the purchase of diesel cars to help reduce CO2 emissions. In 2015, the government began penalising diesel cars for their effect on local air quality. Having encouraged an expensive purchase, the government then destroyed the resale value of diesel cars. The GDPR regulations have basically forced organisations to pick a cloud provider (Microsoft or Google mainly). If AI makes the could untenable, there is going to be a lot of unpicking that work. If the governments laws have made organisations more vulnerable, can we sue the government?
I welcome answers to these questions from people who know more than me.
(For an attempt at more constructive engagement, see What virtues and practices might help us in an AI world? – Jots and Scribbles)
