Calls for AI Pause Futile At this Late Date
August 29, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Well, the nuclear sub has left the base. A group of technology experts recently called for a 6-month pause on AI rollouts in order to avoid the very “loss of control of our civilization” to algorithms. That might be a good idea—if it had a snowball’s chance of happening. As it stands, observes ComputerWorld‘s Rob Enderle, “Pausing AI Development Is a Foolish Idea.” We think foolish is not a sufficiently strong word. Perhaps regulation could have been established before the proverbial horse left the barn, but by now there are more than 500 AI startups according to Jason Calacanis, noted entrepreneur and promoter.
A sad sailor watches the submarine to which he was assigned leave the dock without him. Thanks, MidJourney. No messages from Mother MJ on this image.
Enderle opines as a premier pundit:
“Once a technology takes off, it’s impossible to hold back, largely because there’s no strong central authority with the power to institute a global pause — and no enforcement entity to ensure the pause directive is followed. The right approach would be to create such an authority beforehand, so there’s some way to assure the intended outcome. I tend to agree with former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates that the focus should be on assuring AI reliability, not trying to pause everything. … There simply is no global mechanism to enforce a pause in any technological advance that has already reached the market.”
We are reminded that even development on clones, which is illegal in most of the world, continues apace. The only thing bans seem to have accomplished there is to obliterate transparency around cloning projects. There is simply no way to rein in all the world’s scientists. Not yet. Enderle offers a grain of hope on artificial intelligence, however. He notes it is not too late to do for general-purpose AI what we failed to do for generative AI:
“General AI is believed to be more than a decade in the future, giving us time to devise a solution that’s likely closer to a regulatory and oversight body than a pause. In fact, what should have been proposed in that open letter was the creation of just such a body. Regardless of any pause, the need is to ensure that AI won’t be harmful, making oversight and enforcement paramount. Given that AI is being used in weapons, what countries would allow adequate third-party oversight? The answer is likely none — at least until the related threat rivals that of nuclear weapons.”
So we have that to look forward to. And clones, apparently. The write-up points to initiatives already in the works to protect against “hostile” AI. Perhaps they will even be effective.
Cynthia Murrell, August 16, 2023
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