Catapulting concern of alignment issue

 

The other day I was watching this movie Primer (2004), I stumbled on it while random scrolling. Reminds me of the time when you end up in the library to escape the heat and randomly search for something to read -dustier part where not many people access is a better place, and end up reading something valuable like Whitman or Naipaul. With internet random reading has significantly reduced and has shifted to random watching -mostly lowest common denominator eyeball trash -I am told attention seeking doom economy is where capitalism is moving with neoliberal alacrity! Primer is a low budget movie that has attained cult status. It is about a bunch of engineers/innovators who dabble with technology in their basement to stumble upon something exceeding their wildest expectations -the machine to make thing to weigh less ends up into time machine capabilities. What is compelling is the director, producer, screen writer, and lead actor and technician of the movie Shane Carruth is also a mathematician and works as an engineer, doesn’t dumb down the language for the audience like most science fiction do. And what is remarkable is when they realize their breakthrough they don’t turn cartwheel or jump up triumphally fisting in the air, they are stunned which is a plausible expectation when you are dealing with mindboggling complexities and pioneer portal. The scared deadpan expression of enormity is compelling realistic watch and indeed respite from usual cringe that you are used to watch. There are few takeaways for contemporary context when we are discussing fast evolving Cambrian scene of AI. Once the protagonists realized the potential of their invention, they upscale it for human size with full knowledge of their recklessness: "I can think of no way in which this thing can be considered remotely safe," says one. The enormity of their creation simultaneously presents human flaws into sharp focus. They become untrustworthy and greedy, and use it for immediate financial gain by playing the stock market and betting on college basketball games, and later for personal aggrandizement, when one of them tries to reverse-engineer the events at a party in order to make himself the hero. Carruth says “I saw these guys as scientifically accomplished but ethically, morons. They never had any reasons before to have ethical questions. So, when they’re hit with this device, they’re blindsided by it. The first thing they do is make money with it. They’re not talking about the ethics of altering your former self…”.

Some of the antics of AI techies, faced with enormity of what they are handling, one cannot but cringe and agree with the description ‘ethical morons’, as also capitalism framework of greed that is fueling to reckless lowest common denominator to grab market. There surely is an alignment issue -need for AI to align with basic ethical framework, which smarter concerned people have already flagged and are working on institutional mechanism before it creates catastrophic impact. There are spectrum of risk, and existential risk of AGI is the farthest -indeed farfetched at this moment, so is the issue of loss of control -runaway AI. Threat to idea of truth as collective deal is breached by algorithm. AI is simulating its own world. Deepfakes, misinformation and disinformation can severely impact democratic institutions. There is a need for mechanism of digital authentication so that people are aware and have choice. AI is distilled version of collective hence biases are common, and gets amplified and is exacerbated. Centuries of work by remarkable people to mainstream and consolidate egalitarian humanist value system is being challenged by powerful rogue technology in the hands of ethical morons.

Face by face the answers seem uncertain
Young and old, proud icons are dismissed
Can machines ever see my queens as I view them?
Can machines ever see our grandmothers as we knew them?                                                                            (from poem AI, Ain't I A Woman by Joy Buolamwini, founder of the Algorithmic Justice League) 

AI humanoid with female face are gendered within regressive frame of male gaze stereotype. All knowing humanoid that is simultaneously a know nothing nubile seductress. Privacy is another matter that needs attention -studies shows that AI will help leaders with dictatorial tendencies to consolidate and authoritarian regimes to control. Weaponized AI triggered by black box decisions is a grievous matter hence call for strict human oversight despite apprehension of losing superior AI reasoning over human. There are calls for regulations without impeding innovation, that is, transparency and oversight on foundational models but regulating start up that are fine tuning these and interfacing with public. Which brings in an important issue of public sector investment in AI. Foundational models are prohibitively expensive (the other day it was reported that Meta bought 30b$ worth GPUs from Nvidia) and are monopolized by few big private players. Much of the world will not have access to these latest innovations and will be dependent on BigTech. There is a need for international foundational model, preferably under UN AI that is accessible to all member state for research and so on.

There is also immediate need for high level expert group on AI in UN that will provide alliance and framework for regulation of AI which is dynamically synced with ever changing challenging dimensions of AI and its implications that is increasingly difficult to predict as also cumulative complexities with breakthroughs in other fields.