Our winter quarter faculty panel on the Politics of Artificial Intelligence took place on February 27th . The panelists included Professor Victor Menaldo (Political Science), Professor Aylin Caliskan (Information School) and Professor Noah Smith (Computer Science). The gist of the panel’s message was that we should be skeptical of the hype and worry.
Noah Smith (who works in AI) acknowledged importance advances but was adamant that AI systems will never think and create as humans do. He expects that different AI systems will prove valuable for specific tasks, but (I’m paraphrasing) we need not worry about a unified AI system that will lord over humans.
Victor Menaldo expects AI developments to transform our economy. As with other economic transformations, there will be losers but also new opportunities. The invention of the automobile put the horse out of business, along with all of the people who supported the horse economy. But the automobile also created new societal benefits (e.g. improved transportation systems, cleaner streets) and new job opportunities (e.g. in manufacturing, highway construction, gas stations, truck drivers).
Aylin Caliskan highlighted a number of social concerns about AI systems, such as privacy protection and discrimination, but also noted that organizations are actively working to develop policies to address AI limitations and to regulate their use moving forward.
Our IT person, Steve Dunne, commented that he felt better about AI after the panel. To feel better was not the purpose of the panel, of course, but shedding light on the mysterious subject did seem helpful. The event can be viewed on our department’s YouTube page. If you are interested in reading more on the subject, these two articles are offer a nice juxtaposition.
Ezra Klein: This Changes Everything
Noam Chomsky: The False Promise of ChatGPT