In an attempt to prevent threats from Artificial Intelligence tech giants and their legal counsel met with Senators on Capitol Hill on September 13 to discuss the possible dangers this new advancement may create.
AI, or artificial intelligence, while useful in certain scenarios, could pose a threat to humanity including loss of jobs, ethical issues, and some privacy concerns.
Headed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the first of nine forums to come discussed the urgent need to pass legislation, regulating AI.
Tech giant CEOs including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates were all in attendance. The meeting was very exclusive and lacking in representation as well as closed off from the public. The meeting did not include any women, civil rights leaders, or AI researchers. Many others, including some senators, were left out of the closed-door meeting.
In only the first session, Congress came to the unanimous conclusion that in some way or another, the government will need to intervene and legislation will need to be imposed; however, it will probably take a few months for any of this to happen.
Many feel as if there should be tighter restrictions on AI.
“100% percent [there should be restrictions]. I mean it could get out of control and so I think that anybody who thinks about the future thinks about the coming singularity when artificial intelligence takes over humanity and so definitely we want to make sure that does happen,” NHS history teacher, Larry Saladin said,"
So far legislation has not passed anything in the past five years regarding social media, the privacy of data, or Artificial Intelligence although, there are some works in the making.
The U.S. AI Act, a bipartisan framework promoted by Senators Richard Blumenthal (CT) and Josh Hawley, will require companies using AI to hire an outside, private overseer; however, nothing has been set in motion yet.
There are many layers to the alleged dangers of AI, ones worth discussing, including open-source software which provides the original coding to the public and allows for modifications to be made.
With a budget of 800 dollars and just a few hours of work, Tristan Harris, the co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, along with his team was able to strip the safety features away from LLaMA 2, Meta’s open-source, AI chat technology soon to be released.
The AI then gave instructions to the team, after being prompted, on how to build a “biological weapon.”
While Meta did not respond to this possible threat, it posed many questions and further added to the debate of whether or not “open-source”, was beneficial or dangerous.
“I think that AI is detrimental because it takes up jobs from people who could use the money,” NHS sophomore Bryce Maddox said.
The debate over whether AI is beneficial or detrimental is ongoing.
“I think it is very similar to social media, that it has a lot of benefits but if misused, or used by the wrong people it will be catastrophic,” NHS English teacher Theresa Talluto said.
There was much talk about possible government funding to try to ensure that advancements in AI will be made, but it may take a while for anything to happen.
Kommentare