Google’s Sundar Pichai doesn’t want you to be clear-eyed about AI’s dangers
1Reported today on TechCrunch
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Google's Sundar Pichai doesn't want you to be clear-eyed about AI's dangers
Alphabet and Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, is the latest tech giant kingpin to make a public call for AI to be regulated while simultaneously encouraging lawmakers towards a dilute enabling framework that does not put any hard limits on what can be done with AI technologies.
In an op-ed published in today's Financial Times, Pichai makes a headline-grabbing call for artificial intelligence to be regulated. But his pitch injects a suggestive undercurrent that puffs up the risk for humanity of not letting technologists get on with business as usual and apply AI at population-scale - with the Google chief claiming: "AI has the potential to improve billions of lives, and the biggest risk may be failing to do so" - thereby seeking to frame 'no hard limits' as actually the safest option for humanity.
Simultaneously the pitch downplays any negatives that might cloud the greater good that Pichai implies AI will unlock - presenting "potential negative consequences" as simply the inevitable and necessary price of technological progress.
It's all about managing the level of risk, is the leading suggestion, rather than questioning outright whether the use of a hugely risk-laden technology such as facial recognition should actually be viable in a democratic society.
"Internal combustion engines allowed people to travel beyond their own areas but also caused more accidents," Pichai writes, raiding history for a self-serving example while ignoring the vast climate costs of combustion engines (and the resulting threat now posed to the survival of countless species on Earth).
"The internet made it possible to connect with anyone and get information from anywhere, but also easier f