Richard Stern writes for National Review Online about the future control of artificial intelligence.
There is an intelligence loose in the world that has no respect for humanity. It seeks to manipulate us, pit us against one another, and harness us to its own purposes, and it is certain it can run your life better than you can.
It’s not what you’re thinking: The intelligence is that of every socialist and collectivist who has ever lived, from Karl Marx to Bernie Sanders. Whether or not misaligned artificial intelligence truly poses a threat, misaligned human intelligence, seeking to concentrate unlimited power in the hands of government bureaucrats, remains the greatest threat we face.
While AI’s rapid advances are concerning, dangerous technology is nothing new. At the 1830 opening of the world’s first intercity passenger railway in England, the locomotive fatally injured a member of Parliament. For roughly 70 years, cars burned leaded gasoline, pumping a neurotoxin into the air we breathed. The technological miracles of the 20th century also made possible the devastation of the world wars.
And yet, the advances of the 20th century have also ushered in two centuries of unprecedented prosperity, more than doubled life expectancies, and cut the childhood mortality rate by roughly 90 percent.
It calls to mind God’s warning in Deuteronomy: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life.” This promise and warning should extend to our inventions and scientific discoveries as well.
AI is a transformative technology. Steam and rail freed our work from the limits of human and animal muscle. AI is doing the same for knowledge: It is a condensed, adaptable form of humanity’s collected knowledge, ready to be applied to our problems, both small and large.
Which brings us to the age-old question: A new tool may be the work of innovators and entrepreneurs, but who controls it? History features countless kings and aspiring despots who seized each new tool, wielding the power to control the technology and humanity itself to conform to their own ends.
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