Chapter 41. AI Ethics
Cassie Kozyrkov
Why aren’t we talking about what makes AI uniquely more dangerous than other technologies?
The topics that come up in connection with AI ethics are vital, timely, and necessary. I just wish we wouldn’t use the term “AI ethics” whenever it...isn’t even specific to AI. Many so-called AI ethics talking points are about technology in general, and they’re nothing new. Take them off the list and you’re left with topics that focus on personhood and the singularity. Unfortunately, these distract you from what you really ought to worry about.
Marketing AI as chrome-plated humanoids takes advantage of the public’s ignorance. We’re a species that sees human traits in everything, from faces in toast to bodies in clouds. If I sew two buttons onto a sock, I might end up talking to it. That sock puppet’s not a person, and neither is AI; robots are just another kind of pet rock. The way the term “AI” is used today isn’t about developing replacement humanlike entities. Instead, AI is a set of tools for writing software, letting you program with examples (data) instead of explicit instructions. That’s both the promise of AI and its true peril.
Levels of Distraction
Imagine that you want to automate a task that takes 10,000 steps. In traditional programming, a person must sweat over each of those little instructions.
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