8 Reasons Why We're Afraid of AI Now More Than Ever
There has been a lot of noise lately about AI going bad. Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and others have written open letters warning about the risks of advancing Generative AI too quickly.
It might be easy to imagine an evil government, military leader or tech-savvy CEO pushing a button and making AI harm mankind. However, the reality is much more complicated than that.
1. Autonomous Weapons
One of the biggest fears surrounding AI is that it will be used as a weapon and kill people. This fear is largely based on the Terminator movies where Skynet becomes self-aware and begins to kill humanity. There are also concerns that autonomous weapons will be hacked and used against civilians. This is why a group called Stop Killer Robots has been pushing for a treaty to prohibit autonomous weapons.
Those fears are not without merit. A drone swarm could be used to target people or the Phalanx CIWS on ships could automatically fire at missiles that approach too quickly for human pilots to parry. Additionally, it is possible for a machine to be programmed with human bias. For example, if a facial recognition software has been trained using mostly white faces, it could accidentally target minorities.
The five world leaders involved in the autonomous weapons race are currently spending billions of dollars on developing these systems. So, it is important to act now and push for a treaty. This would include a ban on all autonomous weapons that do not require meaningful human control or that directly target humans.
2. Algorithmic Trading
Whether the news is reeling off job after job at which AI outperforms humans or sci-fi is full of terrifying scenes of intelligent machines hunting for human blood, it’s easy to get anxious about the rise of this unfamiliar technology. But trepidation about new technologies is normal, and the problem often stems from a lack of understanding. That leads us to over-focus on harms and underestimate the benefits. For instance, at the dawn of electrification, potential customers exaggerated the dangers of electricity and focused on anecdotes about electrocutions.
The fact is, most of the things we fear about AI are based on misconceptions or speculation. For example, while it’s impressive that a machine can recognize a cat in a picture, it isn’t intelligent enough to be feared as a threat.
Other fears, such as putting the power of AI in the wrong hands, are also unfounded. In fact, some tech leaders are showing openness to government regulations that could keep AI safe. For example, chipmaker Nvidia is promoting a system called “guardrails” that it says can prevent bias by making sure that AI products are developed with input and understanding from the communities they will affect, and by requiring them to be tested in unbiased ways.
3. Cyber Attacks
Many people fear that AI will lead to cyber attacks, like malware and ransomware. These types of attacks involve infecting a system or file with a malicious virus or program, and then denying access to that system until the attacker receives a ransom. This can lead to massive loss of data or revenue for an organization.
The concern here is that as AI laboratories race to produce systems more powerful than GPT-4, they could inadvertently create digital minds that no one — including their creators — can understand, predict or reliably control. This type of development is reminiscent of the bootleggers who profited during alcohol prohibition, and it may be a case of the fox guarding the henhouse.
While it is natural for people to be fearful of any new technology, psychologists say that a proper education on how to use the technology can alleviate some of the stress and anxiety. Similarly, learning how to work with and train an AI can help make it more useful for everyone. It will not be the boogeyman it was in movies and TV shows, but a valuable tool for humans to do their jobs better and more efficiently.
4. Privacy Issues
Every new technology in history has sparked a moral panic - the fear that it will destroy society or our way of life. And while we can point to plenty of examples where this fear has been justified, it is also true that most of the time, those fears have been misguided.
Privacy is one of the most common concerns about AI because it involves a lot of personal information. AI systems rely on data to train their algorithms and improve performance, and this data may contain private information like names, addresses, and credit card details.
This information can be accessed by malicious actors who want to use it for illicit purposes. As a result, people are concerned that their personal data could be used to spread fake news or for discriminatory reasons. This concern is heightened by the fact that many of the services people use to access the internet require them to give up their privacy in order to benefit from those services. This is a worry that will only get worse as AI becomes more prevalent.
5. Discrimination
There's no denying that some forms of AI can be detrimental. Many people worry that generative AI will replace jobs, for example. They're concerned about how easy it will be for computers to churn out art and music without human oversight. They also fear that speech-recognition technology will have racial biases and other prejudices, or that chatbots will impersonate historic figures and offend minorities.
These concerns are heightened by the widespread use of AI in fields such as law enforcement, customer service, and other business operations. Many believe that the use of this technology will lead to unfair incarceration, spam and misinformation, cyber-security catastrophes, and even the potential for an AI "runaway" with catastrophic consequences.
While these fears are not unfounded, it's important to remember that we've been through this kind of tech anxiety before. Past technological advances, such as industrial automation, led to big societal shifts. But, while some of the worst sci-fi predictions did come true, the majority of them didn't. This makes it important to take the time to consider and weigh all of the pros and cons of this technology before making any major decisions.
6. Job Loss
The idea that AI could one day wipe out humanity has become a prominent fear for many. From the growing number of jobs that are being automated to gender and racial biases in algorithms, there are a lot of concerns about what will happen when AI gets smarter.
A large number of top business leaders agree that AI poses a threat to humanity in the not-so-distant future. According to a survey shared by Yale management professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, 42% of CEOs believe that AI will cause our destruction in the next five to 10 years.
While it's not impossible that the world could be wiped out by intelligent machines, these fears are often overblown. The fact is, there's no single government or company that can push a button and command AI to kill us.
Experts like Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence CEO Oren Etzioni argue that the world needs to develop avenues where humans can exercise oversight over these systems. He suggests that we regulate these technologies in the same way that we regulate nuclear weapons.
7. Social Issues
Many people fear that AI will exacerbate existing social issues, like environmental destruction and income inequality, and lead to an overabundance of weapons, surveillance, and control by militaries and police forces. While this is a valid concern, the solution shouldn't be to stop researching and building AI.
Rather, the best way to address this problem is through education, she says. Whether it's learning about how AI works in your daily life, or becoming involved with your local AI research groups, these efforts can help to combat the "AI boogeyman narrative" and give you more confidence that you are making a positive impact on the world around you.
Additionally, people should remember that this isn't the first time that a new technology has caused moral panics. Each major technological advancement in history has caused fears of mass job loss or other societal catastrophes. But those fears usually never come true. In fact, past technological advances have led to economic booms and record job and wage growth - the opposite of what most people fear today.
8. The Future
A lot of people worry that AI will be used to destroy humanity, and this is a real concern. But it's a bit different from other fears like a global pandemic or nuclear weapons because there's no single government entity, evil CEO or anything that could essentially push a button to make AI do evil things.
The main reason for this concern is the threat of autonomous weapons, which can kill without human intervention and that could lead to an AI arms race and mass casualties. Another concern is superintelligence, or an AI that becomes more intelligent than humans and starts developing its own goals that are not aligned with ours. This is the fear that has made its way into popular culture through movies like Skynet from The Terminator series.
However, many experts say sci-fi disaster scenarios are a distraction from more realistic concerns that we face now. For example, Oxford Institute for Ethics in AI senior research associate Elizabeth Renieris said that current AI tools are able to "free ride on the whole of human experience to date" which makes them susceptible to bias and other issues that exist today.
