It brings me great pain and empathy hearing that young people are experiencing in the face of AI a continual looming uncertainty about work. Is this truly what we want for our children? They start out in an education system in which AI has shown overall measurable decreases in learning development, and then when they graduate, what they find on the other side is no entry level work due to AI, and they continually fear their future career path may suddenly be made obsolete.
They aspire to be recognized for their work, to share their voices, or to be creative artists; regardless, all of them want to show pride in their work. But they fear putting any image of themselves out there, any of their work for the world to see, in fear of any of it to be altered, deep-faked, stolen, or questioned. They want to develop themselves, but it is too easy to offload their own development to AI, and they do not end up finding satisfaction in their work, which requires friction. Their water and mineral resources run out as AI swallow exorbitant amounts of energy. This is not an imagined future but an evolving reality.
You may say, “Wait, there are two sides to this. AI has its drawbacks, but it has its benefits.” I agree with you it has its benefits, but I do not think they justify the risk of the current level of carelessness AI being employed. There are good uses of AI and ways it makes life more convenient now, sure, but AI development does not need to rushed in order to realize these benefits as quickly as possible.
Why put the cart before the horse by having AI development prioritized above the welfare, dignity, wellbeing, and safety of our children and future generations, as is currently being done? Why sacrifice the future for the sake of putting a “AI-first” agenda on full blast? Why is it “let’s do this AI all the way first” and then figure out how we get the energy for it later? Why don’t we do research on how to control AI first before just spilling it out into the wild to wreak havoc?
I am not questioning AI, but the rapid and unregulated development of it, which we are brainwashed into believing is inevitable so that we think there is nothing we can do about it. We are blindly led to believe that our only recourse is to make “the most benefit” of it now while turning a blind eye to looking at the overall trajectory by which AI companies are taking our future. By engaging in AI heavily without question and resigning ourselves to what the AI companies do, we are enabling and empowering them.
AI companies are launching all of society head-first into their human guinea-pig experiment, regardless of consent, while telling the rest of us to meet them halfway by adjusting to them, adapting or die for them, overlooking what harm they are doing and blindly focus on what is best, investing all this money for them in order for some future promise they bring. Yet, what we get in return in the near future is financial crisis, work crisis, education crisis, environmental crisis, disruption of creative communities, turning high trust societies into low trust societies through misinformation and identity theft. Somehow all this is supposed to be worth it all, and the ends justify the means at all costs. But in the real end, after they make all their mess, we become obligated to them to pick up their pieces and bail them out.
We have a choice in the matter of what to do about AI. This was not the only time we were at a crossroads of choosing between a human-first society or a technology first-one. Before the end of World War II, it was believed that aggressive experimentation on humans was necessary for progress. After the horrid experimentations that took place during the war in the name of science, all experiments have been banned that do not respect consent or the value of human life. Today, AI companies are launching into its great human experiment on society. We can and should apply the same rules to protect consent, human dignity, and safety that already exist.
Like how there is no minimal design standard for AI safety, there used to be none for cars. After many deaths due to car accidents, people felt that a powerful and ubiquitous technology should be under strict regulation. Because they stood up for human life, we never had to worry about the next generation of cars that come out, and we can look forward to them. AI-driven cars will be safer than human-driven ones, but that is not because AI itself is under much regulation, but car technology is. Let us put the same strict standards on AI in general as we do on cars, given that AI will be as impactful on society as cars.
When it comes to education, all teachers must be certified, tests are given to ensure educational standards are to be met, all material must meet quality standards. Yet when AI first came out in the middle of a school year, AI is allowed to come sweeping in and turn the education system on its head and create an epidemic of rampant cheating and cognitive off-loading. We must prioritize the value of education first, and the ability of the young to find work, and AI should come only second to these priorities.
To those who say that there is nothing that can be done about AI technology since it is already out there (the “cat is already out of the bag” argument), I will tell you that human cloning technology is already out there. Nevertheless, human cloning is illegal, because of its ethical consequences and implications. Due to the ban, there are not tons of human clones walking around and the world is better for it. There are issues with AI technology that is on par with the ethical consequences and implication of cloning; though genes are not cloned, people’s identities, images, voices, creative work and job work get cloned and manipulated. This is already a serious issue, but will become a major one eroding human trust that keeps society together. I am not for a ban on AI, but there are many uses which should be highly limited.
We now live in an AI-first world. A categorically one-sided decision has been made on our behalf that AI’s development is much more important than the ethics of human experimentation, the value of education, and ensuring future safety and stability. But what we are forgetting is we can become a part of the decision, and we can stand up and say no to what is happening before it gets worse.
