Artificial Intelligence: 'Definitely more of an opportunity than a threat'

FRANCE 24 English

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00 - Well, Harris says AI or artificial intelligence

00:02 has the potential to improve lives,

00:04 but could pose safety and civil rights concerns.

00:07 The US vice president spoke after a White House meeting

00:10 with senior internet executives

00:11 at the cutting edge of current AI developments.

00:14 Let's get more on this story and bring in Will Duffield,

00:16 who's a policy analyst at the Cato Institute's

00:18 Center for Representative Government.

00:21 Will's focus is on the web of government regulation

00:23 and private rules that govern American speech online.

00:26 Good to see you, sir.

00:28 AI, threat or opportunity, what do you think?

00:31 - Oh, I think definitely more of an opportunity

00:34 than a threat.

00:35 So far, everything we've seen,

00:37 while there are capacities for misuse,

00:39 the sky isn't falling,

00:41 and we have a lot of new useful creative tools

00:43 and methods for organizing data.

00:45 - So AI in itself isn't the bad thing, is it?

00:49 It's those who get to use it.

00:51 That's the problem, I suppose, isn't it?

00:53 - That's the problem with every new technology.

00:57 - Do you have any ideas, any guidelines

00:58 as to what should be done?

00:59 'Cause Kamala Harris just seems to say

01:01 to the internet barons, if you like,

01:04 "Well, it's your responsibility.

01:05 "You've got a legal responsibility to get on with this.

01:07 "Make sure it's okay."

01:08 Surely that's not enough, is it?

01:10 - She focuses on the potential risks and harms.

01:14 And obviously the devil is in the details

01:17 of what exactly those are.

01:19 Now, I've been glad that the White House

01:21 seems to be focusing on more practical misuses,

01:26 AI bias, the misuse in fraud and spam,

01:31 rather than kind of sky is falling,

01:34 existential risk concerns about robots taking over.

01:38 So it seems like a reasonable starting point

01:41 for this conversation.

01:42 - It seems very sensible too, doesn't it?

01:43 Because that's precisely what I think we're looking at,

01:45 the possibility that AI is used to amplify the problems

01:50 that we've already identified

01:51 within kind of social networks today.

01:55 - I think so.

01:56 There will be a little bit of an arms race with it

01:58 as again, we see with other new technologies.

02:01 So it will both be used to produce more spam

02:04 and to filter spam on the other side.

02:07 - You have a regard on this, which few of us have,

02:10 'cause it's something you're looking at in a very deep way.

02:14 Can you give us some kind of sense

02:15 of how the positives could be?

02:17 'Cause I can sit here as a doom merchant

02:20 and talk about what could go wrong.

02:21 Give us something to look forward to

02:23 that might be good.

02:25 - We can all have an AI assistant,

02:30 a tool for interacting with all of the systems

02:35 that have seemed to overtake our lives lately.

02:38 These digital systems, corporate systems,

02:41 government systems that we have to engage with

02:43 in order to live modern lives,

02:45 but are very taxing for individuals to navigate.

02:49 And so I think the best or most exciting uses of AI

02:52 come down to it being an interface

02:56 between we and many of the systems we've created,

02:59 but struggle to use very well.

03:01 - So like you say, you could have your own assistant

03:03 who could maybe be your key chain master,

03:06 your password keeper, that kind of stuff.

03:09 And I'm sensing my doom sort of side coming into this

03:13 and saying, what if that gets hacked?

03:15 But you've got someone who could actually be there for you

03:17 and could actually sort of make life easier

03:19 in sort of you negotiating the internet

03:21 and everything you have to do.

03:23 - I think the question of who owns that personal assistant

03:26 then becomes very important,

03:28 whether it's something you're borrowing

03:30 or renting from a platform

03:31 or something that's running on your own machine at home,

03:35 owned and controlled by you.

03:37 Obviously open source or user modifiable AI

03:42 may be abusable in ways that AI moderated

03:46 by someone else isn't.

03:48 But if you don't control the digital assistant,

03:51 is it really your assistant?

03:54 I think that's the big tension going into this

03:56 or going forward.

03:57 - Indeed, I'm feeling that tension very overtly now.

04:00 Can I ask about the future of news

04:02 before we end this interview?

04:04 Obviously the concept of the sort of AI newsreader

04:08 is this something that many people joke about,

04:10 but it's a genuine reality, isn't it, right now?

04:13 I mean, there is an AI newsreader.

04:16 - Well, I think right now we're using

04:18 lots of frankly just much worse algorithmic systems

04:23 to sort and identify news for us,

04:25 whether it's the side tab on our phone

04:28 or what the Twitter algorithm chooses to show us.

04:31 And again, more individualized systems

04:35 for selecting relevant news

04:37 would probably be a benefit given where we are now.

04:40 - And that's one of the things though, isn't it,

04:42 if you think about it,

04:42 'cause you mentioned about sort of what you see

04:44 on social media.

04:45 Who's choosing that algorithm?

04:46 Who's making that happen?

04:47 Why do I see certain things from a certain political agenda

04:51 on my social media that I don't particularly wanna see?

04:53 - It depends on who's operating

04:57 and who owns that algorithm

04:59 that's making those determinations.

05:00 I mean, usually it's on the basis of

05:02 things you might've looked at in the past,

05:04 but again, if it's not your system,

05:07 there's the potential that someone else is prioritizing

05:10 different things than you might.

05:12 And when we look at AI as reflecting us, humanity,

05:17 it immediately begs the question,

05:19 which humanity, which set of values, which us?

05:22 So I think that, again, we'll run that question of values,

05:27 we'll run through all of this

05:29 because it is such a reflective technology.

05:33 - We could talk all night about this, couldn't we?

05:34 Thank you very much indeed, Will,

05:36 for giving us that insight into how this all works.

05:39 Will Duffield there from the Cato Institute.

05:41 AI, it is the future, well, it's the present,

05:43 it's happening right now,

05:44 but obviously where it goes next is the question.

05:46 Will giving us some guidelines as to how it could go,

05:49 showing us some positives, showing us some negatives,

05:51 and of course, giving us as ever a balance view.

05:53 Thank you, sir, for joining us here on France 24.

05:55 We really appreciate it.

05:56 Thank you.

05:57 - Thanks for having me.

05:58 - You're most welcome.

Category

Transcript

Recommended