What emerged out of the Singapore Conference On AI, or SCAI, aparently held from 4 to 6 Dec 2023, were 12 concerns that AI poses for mankind. I’m not going to list them here, do look them up on your own, whether on the Straits Times or elsewhere if that takes your fancy. I just want to make a remark or two here.
Milton Friedman said of America’s Social Security System that there was not any huge public demand for it. Social Security had to be sold. The Duke of Wellington, when considering the impact of railways, said that it would result in “…the common people moving about needlessly.” To that, Thomas Sowell has remarked that if the common people had thought it needless, why would they have moved about? Moving people and goods from one place to another incurs costs. People usually have to pay in order to move. If moving were not necessary or desirable, then people have to spend their money getting food, water, shelter and so forth. Politicians remain in power because they do what people want them to do. People want goodies for which they do not have to work, and nobody likes to be taxed, so don’t raise taxes, if you please. That’s impossible for any politician to do, so what happens? Why, market fantasies and nightmares, of course.
Artificial Intelligence has been hailed as the way forward, what every positively-postured, future-focused person ought to have in their pockets, and that includes money, by the way. Fantasies need to be complemented with nightmares, and the twelve concerns that arose out of the SCAI seem to be some of those nightmares. I had a cursory glance at them, and none of them seem to me to indicate that AI is some increasingly sentient being with the power to kill us all. Rather, it seems to me that people are like someone at a live fire range who happens to shoot himself in the foot because a hot spent cartridge somehow found its way inside his shirt and he was trying to get that cartridge out. That’s one picture of AI doing harm to people. I need more convincing. It still seems to me that people just want AI to serve them but not use AI as a tool in getting more productive work done. People must be trained to USE Artificial Intelligence, not be EXISTENTIALLY DEPENDENT on Artificial Intelligence. People mistakenly say that the Mongols were able to move so quickly because they didn’t have a large supply train to drag along with them. No, they PREPARED their supply train ahead of their campaign. They made sure that approach routes and withdrawal routes were abundant with grass for their horses. One example of how Artificial Intelligence can be used is when predictions as to which proteins are used in DNA lesion repair are made by AI. Those predictions were validated by experiments, and the discovery that those proteins were indeed also used in DNA lesion repair might have taken scientists a thousand years had not AI or similar been employed. Of course, those discoveries mean that better cures might be produced for newly-discovered or newly-accelerated ailments. It was almost like when Uranus and Neptune were discovered when Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion were applied.
Are you anxious about the Twelve Concerns that SCAI says AI poses for mankind? Have another look, chew on them and be logical. No need to jump at every hobgoblin conjured up for you. You’re welcome!
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