Artificial Intelligence More Dangerous Than North Korea,
Elon Musk Tweets
We would expect Elon Musk to be a champion of artificial
intelligence. After all, it is the cornerstone of the autonomous driving system
known as Autopilot that is featured in Tesla automobiles. But he has been
warning about the potential dangers of AI since 2014, when he called it the
“biggest existential threat” to humanity ever known. How can someone be a
champion of new technology he finds so potentially dangerous? Easy — Musk is
not constrained by conventional thinking. His ability to see not only both
sides of a coin but also the edge and what’s inside is legendary.
Musk Calls For AI Regulation
In 2015, Musk co-founded OpenAI, whose mission is to develop
artificial intelligence “in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as
a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.” His involvement
in AI research is partly to “keep an eye on what’s going on” in the field.
Last month, during a wide-ranging presentation to the
National Governor’s Association, Musk called for more government regulation of
artificial intelligence “before it’s too late.” Last week, OpenAI beat all
human competitors at an international competition for the multiplayer online
battle arena game Dota 2. The OpenAI program was able to predict where human
players would deploy forces and improvise on the spot, in a game where sheer
speed of operation does not correlate with victory. That means the OpenAI
entrant was simply better, not just faster, than the best human players. After
the victory, Musk tweeted:
Asked how one regulates something that can be done by a
single hacker operating at midnight from a corner of his mother’s basement,
Musk replied, “It is far too complex for that. Requires a team of the world’s
best AI researchers with massive computing resources.”
Is AI A Threat?
The public was exposed to the potential for abuse by
artificial intelligence in the 2002 movie Minority Report based on a novel by
Philip K. Dick. That film was supposedly set in the the year 2054 (the same
year in which all cars will be electric, supposedly), but the predictive power
of the game-playing software from OpenAI is already a part of American culture.
In 2004, tech guru Peter Thiel, who once was associated with
Elon Musk during their work on PayPal, formed Palantir together with Nathan
Gettings, Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen, and Alex Karp. Lord of the Rings fans
may remember that the palantir was a “seeing stone” that gave Saruman the
ability to see in darkness or blinding light.
The literal definition of “palantir” means “one that sees
from afar,” or a mythical instrument of omnipotence. Others may associate a
palantir with the mysterious, all-seeing television screens that featured
prominently in George Orwell’s 1984. Others may see a link to Jeremy Bentham’s
Panopticon, an idea he promoted near the end of the 18th century.
According to The Guardian, “Palantir watches everything you
do and predicts what you will do next in order to stop it. As of 2013, its
client list included the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the Center for Disease Control,
the Marine Corps, the Air Force, Special Operations Command, West Point, and
the IRS. Up to 50% of its business is with the public sector. In-Q-Tel, the
CIA’s venture arm, was an early investor.” The other 50% of its business is
with Wall Street hedge funds and investment banks.
Predicting Human Behavior
Palantir is working closely with police in Los Angeles and
Chicago. Some may applaud its ability to predict which people represent a
danger to society, but critics contend that such data-mining techniques only
reinforce stereotypes that some segments of law enforcement already have,
especially when it comes to black males. An officer who comes into contact with
someone that Palantir has labeled as a threat is likely to behave differently
than if that person has not been pre-targeted by an algorithm.
Even more troubling is a firm known as Cambridge Analytica,
formed in 2013 specifically to use data mining to influence elections. Its
head, Robert Mercer, and Peter Thiel are both staunch supporters of Donald
Trump. Both organizations operate in extreme secrecy bordering on paranoia. It
is not a stretch of the imagination to suggest that Cambridge Analytica may
have had as much influence on the results of the last presidential election as
the alleged Russian interference in the campaign.
Certainly, organizations that exert so much control over
federal, state, and local governments cry out for oversight. Musk’s call for
more regulation of AI will be vehemently opposed by Palantir, Cambridge
Analytica, and any other companies looking to make a buck from compiling data
and selling their conclusions to those in power.
Musk’s concerns were manifested in the movie I, Robot,
starring Will Smith, in which a cyborg imbued with artificial intelligence
seeks to take over control of society. It is only a movie, of course, but it
raised disturbing questions about what the future may hold as machines become
ever more sophisticated.
Recently, Musk got into a public spat with Facebook founder
Mark Zuckerberg over the dangers of AI. Musk characterized Zuckerberg as
someone with “limited” understanding of the subject after Zuckerberg accused
Musk of scaremongering about the dangers of artificial intelligence. But when
it comes down to the nitty gritty and society needs authoritative, practical
advice about AI, who you gonna call — Musk or Zuckerberg? Exactly.
