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The academic\u2019s ambitious guide to the ethics of tech falls short of its promise to provide meaningful answers\nThe AI ethicist Eleanor Drage believes that to thrive alongside artificial intelligence, humans need to recognise AI\u2019s \u201chumanity\u201d. She means that while we often speak of AI as though it were some mystical, formless thing, it is the product of hours of human labour, in silicon and\u00a0quartz mines, microchip factories and data labelling centres. If citizens want to wrest power from the tech companies that are building AI, it helps to understand clearly what they are selling us. This also means seeing through the marketing and hype: \u201cthe cloud\u201d, that nebulous, distant place where your photos are stored, is just someone else\u2019s computer; an AI \u201challucination\u201d is a system error or data labelling mistake; intelligence is a very broad \u2013 and potentially misleading \u2013 term.
\nThe story in Silicon Valley is that AI will either save us, ushering in a new era of prosperity and human longevity, or it will wipe us all out. Drage argues, convincingly, that big tech cannot possibly deliver on its utopian promises while it continues to chase profit and power above all else, and while it serves the interests of a narrow few. Meanwhile, the cultural obsession with the AI-induced apocalypse conveniently redirects attention from the practical conversations we could be having about how to make AI safer \u2013 by ensuring citizens have more power over how their information is used, and how AI models are trained and regulated, for example. Tech titans\u2019 apocalyptic visions also create the false impression that AI safety is more important than climate change, geopolitical tensions and inequality, three problems that are already causing a huge amount of suffering and that, if addressed, would reduce many AI-linked risks too. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The academic\u2019s ambitious guide to the ethics of tech falls short of its promise to provide meaningful answers The AI ethicist Eleanor Drage believes that to thrive alongside artificial intelligence, humans need to recognise AI\u2019s \u201chumanity\u201d. She means that while we often speak of AI as though it were some mystical, formless thing, it is …<\/p>\n