We’ve all seen the science fiction movies where some form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) — under the direction of a power-hungry villain — takes over the world; or the AI starts killing all of its enemies, even its makers. A July 2021 World Economic Forum report projects that robots, automation, and artificial intelligence could replace 85 million jobs globally by 2025. With the unstoppable growth of AI, our biggest threat may be in what we are teaching it. In Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World, which many book critics call ominous but I call hopeful and empowering, author Mo Gawdat posits that AI is like an infant that we must raise ethically and with the best of parenting skills.
AI is like an infant that we must raise ethically and with the best of parenting skills. Gawdat writes:
“The answer to how we can prepare the machines for this ethically complex world resides in the way we raise our own children and prepare them to face our complex world…We can’t prevent it [AI from taking over] but we can make sure it is put on the right path in its infancy. We should start a movement, but not one that attempts to ban it [. . .] nor tries to control it [. . .]. Instead, we can support those who create AI for good and expose the negative impacts of those who task AI to do any form of evil. Register our support for good and our disagreement with evil so widely that the smart ones (by smart ones I mean, of course, the machines, not the politicians and business leaders) unmistakably understand our collective human intention to be good. How do you do that? It’s simple.
- We should demand a shift in AI application so that it is tasked to do good – not through votes and petitions, which are bureaucracies that never lead to anything more than a count and often defuse the energy behind the cause – but through our actions, consistency and economic influence.
- In our conversations, posts on social media and articles in the mainstream media we can object to the use of AIs in selling, spying, gambling and killing. We can boycott those who produce sinister implementations of AI – including the major social media players – not by ignoring them and going off the grid but by avoiding their negative parts and using their good parts consistently. For example, I refuse to swipe and mindlessly click on things that Facebook or Instagram show me unless I am mindfully aware that it is something that will enrich me. I resist the urge to click on the videos of women doing squats or showing their sexy figures and six-packs because, when I did this a few times, my entire feed became full of them, instead of the self-improving, spiritual or scientific content that I actually want to see more of.
- When AI shows me ads that are irrelevant, I skip them, so the AI knows not to waste my time. When it shows them repeatedly, I let them run to exhaust the budget of the annoying advertiser and confuse the AI that is not working in my favour.
- When I produce social media content, I produce it with you, the viewer, and not an algorithm, in mind. I don’t aim for likes but for the value that you will receive. That way, I don’t play by the rules set for me, but by the values I believe in. None of that makes any difference to the bigger picture but that is because at the moment I am one of only a minority who is behaving in this way.
If all of us did this, the machine would change.‘If we make it clear that we welcome AI into our lives only when it delivers benefit to ourselves and to our planet, and reject it when it doesn’t, AI developers will try to capture that opportunity.If we all refuse to buy the next version of the iPhone, because we really don’t need a fancier look or an even better camera at the expense of our environment, Apple will understand that they need to create something that we actually need. If we insist that we will not buy a new phone until it delivers a real benefit, like helping us make our life more sustainable or improving our digital health, that will be the product that is created next.
Similarly, if we make it clear that we welcome AI into our lives only when it delivers benefit to ourselves and to our planet, and reject it when it doesn’t, AI developers will try to capture that opportunity. Keep doing this consistently and the needle will shift.What will completely sway the needle, however, is when AI itself understands this rule of engagement – do good if you want my attention – better than the humans do.
- So don’t approve of killing machines, even if you are patriotic and they are killing on behalf of your own country.
- Don’t keep feeding the recommendation engines of social media with hours and hours of your daily life.
- Don’t ever click on content recommended to you, search for what you actually need and don’t click on ads.
- At the same time, encourage AI that is good for humanity. Use it more. Talk about it. Share it with others and make it clear that you welcome these forms of AI into your life. Encourage the use of self-driving cars, they make humans safer. Use translation and communication tools, they bring us closer together. Post about every positive, friendly, healthy use of AI you find, to make others aware of it.”
It’s easier than you think.
Consider ideal parenting. You use positive distraction, right? Rather than give into the whining or tantrum, you focus on something exciting and positive. You also know you are a role model and your actions speak louder than any words so you try to be mindful of what you do, not just what you say. Likewise, before every click on your device, every show you choose to watch, and every purchase you make, you can begin to ask yourself, “With this act, am I teaching Baby AI to care about goodness, ethics, clean air, clean water, clean food, peace, diversity, equity, inclusion, and fill-in-whatever-other-values-you-think-are-important?”
It’s also better for you.
As you wake up, or before you go to sleep, or whenever you stop to check your phone, rather than scrolling mindlessly through whatever articles and posts the digital and social media algorithms are telling you to read, actively search areas of interest to find positive and inspiring stories and information. Proactive online engagement like this has been shown to improve mental health and you are being a better role model as you raise Baby AI.
