AI's dangers: real and imagined

"Experts who often focus on AI ethics aren't amused by this emerging open-letter trend.

Dr. Sasha Luccioni, a machine-learning research scientist at Hugging Face, likens the new CAIS letter to sleight of hand: 'First of all, mentioning the hypothetical existential risk of AI in the same breath as very tangible risks like pandemics and climate change, which are very fresh and visceral for the public, gives it more credibility,' she says. 'It's also misdirection, attracting public attention to one thing (future risks) so they don't think of another (tangible current risks like bias, legal issues and consent).' ...

'Certain subpopulations are actively being harmed now,' says Margaret Mitchell, chief ethics scientist at Hugging Face: 'From the women in Iran forced to wear clothes they don't consent to based on surveillance, to people unfairly incarcerated based on shoddy face recognition, to the treatment of Uyghurs in China based on surveillance and computer vision techniques.'

So while it's possible that someday an advanced form of artificial intelligence may threaten humanity, these critics say that it's not constructive or helpful to focus on an ill-defined doomsday scenario in 2023. You can't research something that isn't real, they note.

Synthograph generated by T.Olten using Midjourney 5.1

'Existential AI risk is a fantasy that does not exist currently and you can't fix something that does not exist,' tweeted Jeffries in a similar vein. 'It's a total and complete waste of time to try to solve imaginary problems of tomorrow. Solve today's problems and tomorrow's problems will be solved when we get there.'"

Read more:
Open AI Execs warn of "risk of extinction" from artificial intelligence in new open letter
arstechnica.com

ChatGPT (text) + Wolfram (computational) = AI of the future

I'm listening to this one several times. It's dense and technical, but this liberal arts major is excited! You are witnessing history being made! Why not participate in it?

If you'd like to talk about AI or any other topic related to teaching and learning, drop an email to helpdesk@uah.edu and request a consultation with one of our instructional designers or academic technologists. With all of the pedagogical resources and technology tools UAH supports, the world is your oyster!