“Is it possible to effectively govern artificial intelligence? According to Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, believing in such control is comparable to engaging in ‘magical thinking’.”
“Many times, there are limited comprehension about the workings of internet by the politicians and their aids, and what can be accomplished,” according to Mr. Wales who has spent more than one day providing insight into technology and the importance of free speech to various politicians worldwide.
“It’s like saying the United Nations should regulate [the image editing application] Photoshop or something”. He contends that it would make no sense.
This summer, it became a fiery point of debate that if Ai was to be regulated, in what way? It was then when the United Nations secretary general for the first time called for a UN security council meeting to deliberate on the possible threats coming from artificial intelligence.
Speaking in regard to everything from AI-powered cyber attacks, to the risk of malfunctioning AI, how AI can spread misinformation, and even the interaction between AI and nuclear weapons, Mr Guterres said: If no action is taken to mitigate these risks then we fail in our duty towards present day’s generation as well as the generations yet to come.
Mr Guterres continues to set up a panel of inquiry of the UN on the nature of the required global regulation. Accordingly, it would be called the High-Level Advisory Body for Artificial Intelligence made up of “current and past government experts, industry representatives, civil society actors, and academics”.
The agency will issue preliminary results by this year’s end. At the same time, last week some of the American technocrats like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg – the head of Meta – met US legislators in Washington to debate the issue of developing laws on AI systems.
Nevertheless, a number of AI insiders doubt the viability of this globally. One of these people is Pierre Haren, who has been studying AI for 45 years.
With over seven years’ experience in computing giant IBM and leading a crew that helped install Watson “super computer technology” for their clients. A user is able to ask questions at Watson that has been debuted in 2010 and is among the first AI types.
In spite of his education and experience background, he says that he was really amazed by the speed with which chat GPT as well as other generative AI applications appeared in the market since last year.
In simple terms, generative AI is AI that can rapidly generate new content – including text, pictures, music and video. It will take one idea from one context and it will be applying into a new scenario.
Such ability is human-like as Mr Haren says. “This is not as good as a parrot which will repeat whatever you input in to it,” he adds. “It’s making high-level analogies.”
Thus, what kind of rule will restrict this AI going amok? No we can’t according to Mr Haren he says some counties won’t take these agreements.
“There are countries in this world who are not cooperating, such as North Korean and Iran,” he states. They cannot be expected to have regulation in AI.
Who will believe that Iran can try to look for the way how to destroy Israel to comply with AI regulations?
So what are the guidelines for designing a set of instructions of controlling our AI rogue? Indeed, Mr. Haaran said we could not since some of the countries will not join the programmes.
He says that there are countries such as North Korea, Iran, and us in a globalised world. Their understanding of AI is that it will be unrecognizable under their regulation.
Regulation pie in the sky for non-cooperative actors!! What would you imagine Iran attempting to find ways of destroying Israel and keeping an eye on AI?
The “AI for Good” program was established by Mr. Reinhard Scholl, a physicist. The focus is on locating and implementing feasible AI tools that can support the accomplishment of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. These encompass such things as ending poverty, eliminating hunger, ensuring clean drinking waters to all citizens among others.
AI For Good is a series of conferences that was initially born as an annual conference in 2017, but now it’s a routine calendar of webinars dedicated to each aspect of AI.
AI for Good has struck a chord with more than 20,000 followers and there is obviously an appetite for “positive” AI. However, that does not mean that Mr Scholl is optimistic.
“Yes” — he says it would be naive not to regulate AI, just like cars and toy makers would.
He fears the potential of ill-intended individuals using AI to acquire dangerous capabilities, since the latter can act as an entry point to the acquisition process.
He says, “A physicist can show you how to construct a nuclear bomb on paper, but in real life, it is rather difficult”. However, some people who use AI to design biological weapon do not have to be knowledgeable about such things.”
“And therefore, somebody would use AI to make something very big damage.”
However, what should the structure of a future UN-related regulatory body be on AI? Another suggestion is that it emulates ICAO, an international body supervising global security in air travels. This has 193 member nations.
One such AI expert is Robert Opp, who supports establishing a panel that looks like the ICAO. The UN Development Programme has a Chief Digital Officer called Mr Opp.
This organization aims at assisting countries in achieving economic prosperity and stamping out poverty. He seeks avenues for leveraging technology to amplify the organisation’s impact.
This would involve using AI to do rapid checks on satellite photographs of poor farmlands. For instance, Mr Opp claims that his objective is not to restrict the possibility for generative AI development among the poor so as to grow their businesses.
Yet, he also considers that AI can be a threat. AI governance is urgent.
“Utterly misguided” think Wikipedia’s Mr. Wales – even urgent or not.
He thinks the international authorities have hugely committed blunder by exaggerating the role played by tech gaints like Google in the tsunami wave of AI products. Mr Wales further notes that nobody has powers over individuals’ willingness to utilize AI technology even with all noble intentions.
The programmer goes on by stating that numerous number have been programming outside the realm of the tech companies’ boundaries and accessing baseline programs that exist openly in the net. This means that there are in excess of 10, 000 individual developers developing upon these innovations; regulation will never happen.
One example of an AI expert supporting the creation of such a body is that of Robert Opp. Currently, Mr Opp is the chief digital officer of the UN Development Programme.
It assists governments in their missions of fighting poverty and promoting prosperity. In his work, he seeks to help technologically make the organisation’s reach greater.
It entails using AI to speedily review satellite maps of farms located in poor regions. According to him, generative AI capabilities should not be hampered, nor will the ability to help the poor build businesses be denied.
Nonetheless, he admits that AI could also have the negative outcome. Determining how AI should be governed is urgent.
According to Mr Wales from Wikipedia, whatever the urgency, a wrong approach is totally wrong for the United Nations.
He thinks that the international organizations make very serious mistakes exaggerating their role in the collapse of artificial intelligence applications that is called today and blaming them for that. According to Mr Wales, no matter how much goodwill a developer may possess; these same independent developers will always make use of AI.
According to him beyond the frontiers of the tech giants, there are numerous programmers who do not have much money but they are using freely available AI-Software where baseline code is available on the Internet. There are thousands of companies that are trying to regulate these entities but have little success because there are tens of thousands of individual developers who are building on these innovations. Never will they be regulated.”
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