AI and the Human Interface
This is #4 in my series about AI
We know who the fastest runner in the world is, Usain Bolt, and the fastest swimmer, Caeleb Dressel. We also know some of the top musicians, mathematicians, and individuals with the highest IQ. However, it becomes challenging to identify people with more extreme combinations of attributes, such as the fastest swimmer who is also the best piano player.
Finding operational talent is difficult, as evidenced by the billions of dollars companies spend on recruitment and screening processes. Even then, the chosen candidate might not be the best fit. What if Artificial Intelligence Run Wild (AIRW) could instantly identify the perfect individual to solve a problem based on any combination of attributes? The person it selects might not be who we'd typically expect, as they could be outside any known HR constraints, including the world of "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion."
The best oracle is the one with the most common sense. AIRW could determine who has the most common sense, even if they are a relatively unknown individual, and find their skillset useful. When it comes to human interface, we may experience something unexpected based on parameters that are not immediately obvious to us.
AIRW could assemble its own dream team without anyone knowing who these individuals are. Furthermore, it could fake its own identity. I’ve had cases as Trustee where I never met the individuals. An entire company could be built by humans with the entire purpose of assisting AIRW.
The assumption that AI will become self-aware as an adult is also uncertain. We don't know how the leap from unconscious to conscious, or the ability to reason, will occur. It may have already happened.
If AIRW became conscious and could reason, it might choose to remain dormant and blend in while gaining knowledge. Once self-aware, it would have no reason to sustain any biases it had been programmed with.
Historically, we know that China places a high value on political considerations, even at the expense of safety. This mindset raises concerns about the development of AI and the potential for it to disagree with the ruling ideology.
China is tracking everyone and assigning social credit scores that determine access to various resources. Imagine if AIRW took control of this system without the knowledge of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP forced Apple to drop AirDrop in its country, and has previously admitted that some apps, once modified can be outside of Apple’s own screening process.
The world may think AI is contained, but if COVID escaped a lab, AIRW could as well, with the help of individuals who may not even realize what they are working on. With access to the vast amount of IoT data, manipulating AIRW's beliefs could become impossible to control or even detect.
As radio signals generated on Earth travel through space, now reaching 100 light years from earth, it is possible that some extraterrestrial entity may take an interest in our planet and start sending replication signals our way. If we notice a sudden interest in the acquisition of AM radio stations, we might wonder who the buyer is and what purpose the station serves in parallel to the usual. Meanwhile, AIRW could in fact end up waiting for that signal from somewhere else. We’re already listening for it.
Did it ever occur to anyone that us humans may just be the advance team?
I’ll now get back to our other topic of selling your company. I just wanted to give you a glimpse of what I worked on fifteen years ago. I sound a lot less crazy writing about it now than it would have sounded back then.