Governance must rapidly adjust to an unknown future

As OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently put it, there’s ample reason for the general public to be “a little bit scared”. Major advances in artificial intelligence raise concerns about education, work, war and other risks that could have destabilized civilization long ago. climate change. To his credit, Altman is urging lawmakers to regulate his industry.

In meeting this challenge, we must keep two things in mind. The first is the need for speed. If we take too long, we may find ourselves closing the barn door after the horse has been bolted. The same happened with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968: it came 23 years too late. If we had managed to establish some minimum rules after World War II, the NPT’s ultimate goal of nuclear disarmament might have been achievable.

The second concern involves deep uncertainty. This is such a new world that even those working on Artificial Intelligence (AI) do not know where their inventions will take us. A law made with good intentions can still backfire. When America’s founders drafted the Second Amendment, granting the “right to keep and bear arms,” ​​they could not have foreseen how firearms technology would change in the future, thereby changing the meaning of the word “arms.” . Nor did they have any idea how their descendants would not be able to feel the change even after seeing it.

But uncertainty does not justify determinism. Policymakers can still effectively control the unknowns as long as they keep a few broad considerations in mind. For example, one idea that came up during a recent Senate hearing was to create a licensing system under which only select corporations would be allowed to work on AI.

This approach comes with some obvious risks of its own. Licensing can often be a step towards cronyism, so we will also need new laws to prevent politicians from abusing the system. Furthermore, slowing down your country’s AI development with additional checks doesn’t necessarily mean that others will adopt similar measures. In the worst case, you may find yourself facing opponents who are the exact kind of malevolent tools you avoid. This is why AI is best regulated multilaterally, even though that may be a tall order in today’s world.

Another big concern is labor. Just as past technological advances have reduced the demand for manual labor, new applications such as ChatGPT can reduce the demand for a lot of white-collar labor. But this prospect need not be so worrisome. If we can distribute the wealth and income generated by AI equally among the population, then eliminating a lot of work will not be a problem. Far from being diminished by not working, Samant was enlarged by his leisure time.

The problem, of course, is that most people do not know how to make good use of their free time. Pensioners often get worried because they do not know what to do with themselves. Now, imagine that happening in small groups on a large scale. If left unchecked, crime, conflict and perhaps extremism will become more likely. To avoid such consequences, our education system will need to be modified to prepare people for the leisure force. As in earlier ages, education would mean learning to enjoy the arts, hobbies, reading, and thinking.

A final major concern involves the media and the truth. In how to stand in front of a dictator, Nobel Prize-winning journalist Maria Russa said that social media has become a powerful tool for promoting fake news. As Amal Clooney points out in the book’s foreword, autocratic leaders can now rely on “armies of bots” to create the impression that “there’s only one side to every story.”

This is a bigger challenge than most people realise. Even if we pass a law banning automated disinformation, it won’t end. As Amartya Sen pointed out more than 40 years ago, choice is all in the details. Reality is so complex that we cannot possibly represent it without making decisions about what to include and what to exclude. In a world that is inundated with information, influencers don’t need to make news; They may simply be biased in what they choose to report. News outlets can influence voter opinion in both subtle and major ways. Compare the images of Donald Trump and Joe Biden selected by Fox News.

We cannot solve the problem of authoritarian influence by banning fake news. Our best hope lies in re-education. We’ll need to do a better job of making people smarter and less vulnerable to manipulation.

Innovation in education must be accompanied by innovation in law and policy, and innovation in technology is all but necessary to keep up. ©2023/Project Syndicate

Kaushik Basu is Professor of Economics at Cornell University and former Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India.

Updated: June 08, 2023, 11:48 PM IST