The Very Valid and Very Stupid Concerns About AI: Strident Opposition to New Technology has a Shoddy Historical Track Record

The Very Valid and Very Stupid Concerns About AI

Strident opposition to new technology has a shoddy historical track record.

Watching the national debate unfold (and explode) over artificial intelligence (AI) has been one of the more frustrating experiences in recent memory.

On the one hand, many modern Luddites seem to want to destroy the emerging technology wholesale. One can’t help but wonder what these same people might have done, back in the day, to stop the printing press, the steam engine, or the computer.

On the other hand, apologists for the AI industry dismiss all concerns about their tantalizing product on the facile grounds that to ask any questions whatsoever about the technology is to cede the AI race—and, implicitly, to forfeit global leadership—to Communist China.

None of this is particularly persuasive. Very few of the AI industry’s myriad critics are focusing on the proper areas of concern. And the AI industry’s vocal apologists are not recognizing there are any legitimate areas of concern about AI, in the first place.

Both sides of the conversation are shouting past each other. The result is a cheapened and unedifying public debate that does a disservice to an extraordinarily important issue—one that implicates virtually every facet of society. That is why I have sometimes found myself wanting to punch a wall in exasperation.

So, let’s try to sort the very valid concerns about AI from the very stupid concerns about AI.

The somewhat unexpected flashpoint of America’s AI debate has become the expansion of data centers. These often-sprawling buildings, which house computer servers and other bulky information technology infrastructure, have been accused, among other things, of parasitic water and electricity use.

In reality, most of the stated concerns about electricity and water use don’t add up. A typical golf course uses more water than a typical data center. And the water that data centers do use, much like the water that golf courses use, is usually recycled anyway. What’s more, data centers often pay massive property tax bills, thus lowering the tax burden for those living nearby.

But the most damning response to the anti-data center reactionaries is surely this simple observation: The entire internet effectively runs on data centers. The anti-data center position, taken to its logical conclusion, would mean the end of Gmail and Outlook. It would mean the end of the “cloud,” such as Apple’s iCloud and Amazon Web Services.

Anti-data center extremism, in short, would mean the self-inflicted end of the short-lived era of humans having access to all of man’s accumulated knowledge readily available in their pockets. There is no historical precedent of a society shooting itself in the collective foot in such blatant, destructive fashion.

Yes, many data centers are aesthetically hideous monstrosities. They can, and should, be made more attractive. The great Roger Scruton taught that conservatives should prize beauty, including architectural beauty, and he was right about that. But we can strive to make data centers less viscerally hideous without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Now, it would be great if the AI debate were really that simple. But it isn’t. And that’s because there are some very legitimate ethical concerns about AI.

Consider my state of Florida. Here in the Sunshine State, our precocious attorney general, James Uthmeier, is suing OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, for allegedly concealing serious risks and suppressing safety warnings for the company’s signature product, ChatGPT. Specifically, Uthmeier alleges that ChatGPT sometimes encourages self-harm and violence in young users.

Let’s be clear: This should never, ever happen. A computer program should never tell a vulnerable teenage girl how to cut her wrists. A machine should never tell a lustful teenage boy how to circumvent his parents’ internet filters and stream hardcore pornography. An advanced algorithm should never aid or abet an adult’s scheme to cheat on a spouse or commit a violent crime.

The story of new technologies, since time immemorial, is that they often (though not always) enhance both the productivity of the workplace and the general flourishing of the citizenry. But ethical and behavior boundaries are invariably necessary. --->READ MORE HERE

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