Will We Own AIs, or Will They Own Us?

Tim Weber – Techonomy

Neither, seems to be the answer to the question posed by the title. But if one thing AIs do is filter the world for us, the question of who does the filtering and in whose interest they do it becomes very important. As with other free services, free algorithms will be provided in expectation of a benefit to somebody, and that somebody may very well not be the end user. So far so unexceptional (and putting it under the heading of AI doesn’t change the substance of an issue which has been around a good while). But if this is a problem, what are the pressures and processes which will work to relieve it rather than reinforce it? Here, the argument rather fades away: we are told we need clear laws and well-accepted procedures to regulate AI, but there is little suggestion here about what they would say or how we would get to them. It’s slightly unfair to single this piece out for what is quite a common problem: when challenges are technology driven, but solutions need to be socially driven, it’s a lot easier to talk about the first than the second.

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