With all the talk about regulating AI, we hear the extremes coming to light.
You have those that think we should just let everything run its course, and then there are some that think that we need a “kill switch”. Others believe we need to have a human in the loop always.
In many ways, this approach seems reasonable at first, but it defeats the purpose of having an automaton take care of a specific task, and it makes me think about the journey we have gone through with technology.
Today, we step into an elevator, and push a button, never thinking about the fact that once we are inside the metal box, there is very little we have control over. Even more extreme is the train connecting the different terminals at the airport. We don’t even have to press anything there!
A few decades ago, when these technologies were new, we had a human operator, a salaried individual making these things work. It did not make them much easier to operate, nor safer, but it felt like.
AI is going the same route, only the tasks it takes care of are more complex. a self-driving car takes you from where you are, wherever you are, to wherever you are going, not just from the ground floor to the rooftop bar, but is essentially doing the same, in a faster, safer way. If the system works, the human just makes everything slower.
Thermostats, Traffic lights, fire alarms and sprinklers, airbags. No humans there please.