Before a new drug is released to the market it undergoes significant trials and tests. It’s subject to regulation, assessed by a government agency, prescribed by doctors and dispensed at chemists.
Closer to home, before your next-door neighbours can add a second storey to their house, it goes through a planning approval process to determine its structural efficacy, and to interrogate the impact it will have on the amenity of the neighbourhood and adjacent properties.
The power of AI is unknown, which is why we need regulation.Credit: Marija Ercegovac
As a community, we expect checks and balances – for safety, wellbeing, and risk mitigation. Curiously, most of us blithely embrace new technology without the same concerns or, it seems, with any expectations of regulatory oversight.
It is time to question why, on one hand, we have come to trust unregulated tech, but on the other hand acknowledge that it would take the most extreme circumstances for us to consider buying medicine for a sick child from a shaman purporting to offer a cure stashed in the boot of their car.
Many of the tech products we consume daily are free, readily available, easy to use, and seem harmless. Because of that, we have let Facebook and Instagram observe our private lives, TikTok capture our goofy dance videos with our kids, and Google and Bing take note of everything we search.
Now products such as ChatGPT, Bard, and other generative Artificial Intelligence tools and large language models have entered our lives. As with their older tech cousins, we have allowed a smarter and more powerful stranger waltz into our home without having to show any credentials.
Let’s be clear: these products are not harmless. Although many esteemed academics and researchers have written and spoken about the risks of AI for years, it was only when one of the “godfathers” of AI, Geoffrey Hinton, grabbed the conch shell that the broader community started to listen. Hinton, a neuroscientist and computer scientist, quit his job at Google recently to share his concerns.
Imagine for a moment Hinton worked in a lab that created a flu vaccine, which two years later he admitted to the world caused birth defects. All hell would break loose. Instead, Hinton and others created amorphous tech products, beyond the imagination of most of us, which he now acknowledges pose an existential threat with serious consequences for humanity.