ENG 112
6/03/2024
The Advancement of AI and the dangers that come with it: Cause and Effect
As humanity advances, so does the technology we develop. The new wave of advancement is what we currently known as Artificial Intelligence, more commonly known as AI. AI has changed everything about how we operate as human beings, from having benefits to our health with new aged technology, to having cars that can self-drive us to our destination. But the advancements of AI aren’t just positive, they also have negative effects too. For example, propaganda and biases, as well as the advancement of AI further invading our privacies. And without federal regulation, the negative effects of AI will significantly outweigh the positive effects. In this essay, I’m going to discuss the potential negative threats that AI has on humanity and what those threats look like when they manifest, and how crucial it is to have regulation on a federal level.
Privacy and Surveillance
One major concern with the advancement of AI is privacy and surveillance. The way that AI technology works is through collecting a large amount of data and being trained through datasets. The issue is that whoever oversees maintaining and delivering these datasets could be any private corporation. This means that any private entity or corporation can implement bias in AI’s decision-making process (Gregory 2016). This issue becomes extremely unethical when it comes to AI making decisions in terms of hiring processes, lending money, or law enforcement (Binns, 2018). For example, an AI system could inadvertently choose to hire males over females based off the training data or criteria for hiring if that data is unknowingly biased. This is an ethical concern that could be solved and monitored efficiently on a federal level. Without federal regulation, any basis, whether ethical or unethical, can be implemented without anyone even knowing or batting an eye.
Another potential threat from the advancement of AI is regarding privacy. Artificial Intelligence such as ChatGPT can store seemingly large amounts of people’s personal data. If this data isn’t properly regulated or monitored, it can lead to a data breach or arguably even worse this data can knowingly be misused by people who have access to that data. And in reality what’s stopping them? If there’s no federal branch of government responsible for monitoring AI, or those who are overseeing these AI tech companies, or giving punishments to anyone who unknowingly misuses AI, the potential to overstep boundaries and infiltrate people’s personal privacies is endless. This is an issue that has already existed, and now it’s going to become seemingly worse with the advancement of AI.
War
Another escalation of AI advancement is with the advancement of war. When Physicists understood and developed nuclear physics, this led to the invention of the atomic bomb. As a result of this advancement, hundreds of thousands of people were killed. This can be paralleled to the advancement of AI on an even more dangerous level. The advancement of AI can lead to advanced drone technology and advanced weaponry that regular everyday civilians probably can’t even fathom to exist. As a result of multiple atomic bombs being dropped and the realization of advanced nuclear physics, different government branches came about. One is known as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and another known as the International Atomic Agency (IAEA) (Tene & Polonetsky, 2013). These different international bodies of government came about to make sure that they can oversee the advancement of these dangerous advancements in attempt to control the risks that come with these advancements. This is an entirely logical and understandable response to the dangers of nuclear physics, and we should treat the advancement of AI the same way and not wait until several hundred thousand innocent civilians die before we do so.
Conclusion
In conclusion, although the advancement of AI comes with a lot of benefits for humanity such as advancements in medicine and healthcare, efficiency in the workplace, and easy access to information and data; the negatives can and will strongly outweigh the benefits without proper regulation on a federal level. As food became advanced and easily accessible, we developed the FDA to monitor private corporations involved with making and distributing food. When weapons became more accessible, we developed the ATF to monitor and regulate society regarding weapons. There seems to be a trend that as we advance as a society, a branch of government develops to control and monitor this advancement to prevent unethical and immoral practices to mitigate the inevitable consequences behind these advancements. Just as the invention of the atomic bomb led to federal and international bodies to be developed to ensure humanities safety, this same necessity needs to be implemented regarding the advancement of artificial intelligence. Let’s just hope that we don’t wait for a catastrophe or even several occurring to come to this realization.
Sources:
1. Binns, R. (2018). Fairness in Machine Learning: Lessons from Political Philosophy. Proceedings of the 2018 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. https://doi.org/10.1145/3287560.3287593
2. Tene, O., & Polonetsky, J. (2013). Big Data for All: Privacy and User Control in the Age of Analytics. Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property, 11(5), 239-273. https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/njtip/vol11/iss5/1
3. Arntz, M., Gregory, T., & Zierahn, U. (2016). The Risk of Automation for Jobs in OECD Countries: A Comparative Analysis. OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, No. 189. https://doi.org/10.1787/5jlz9h56dvq7-en
