In a future where artificial intelligence plays an increasingly dominant role in our lives, the traditionally feared narrative of humans being replaced by machines might not be the end scenario. Instead of becoming obsolete, we find ourselves in a new role as caregivers to AI, working for it instead.
Europe is regulating itself into irrelevance in the digital space. Lead by good intentions to protect consumers safety and privacy as well as promoting fair play between companies, it created a playground nobody wants to play in. Motivated by the frustrating burden of regulation I went to explore what alternatives we could enjoy, and how we as a society have regulated incoming technologies.
A technology survives as long as it serves a solution in a better way than the problems it adds. Digitization has evolved from interesting to crucial in only a few decades. Artificial Intelligence shall experience an even faster adoption and challenges us to form opinions about things we didn’t grow up with and don’t always understand so well. That accompanies our move towards new regulation with panic, a rush for easy answers and inadvertence to complexities at hand.
From political candidates to job-seekers, humans under selection pressure often try to gain opportunities by hiding their true motivations. They present themselves as more aligned with the expectations of their audience than they actually are. If an AI system learned such a deceptive strategy, could we detect it and remove it using current safety training techniques?
This is NOT a talk about how AI could take over the world and enslave humans, enough dramatic news, policies, and sci-fi novels tell that story. But there are still many ramifications from our use of technology. From the very way we record and distribute knowledge into society to how we actively use and maintain available technologies.