AI Doomsday Warnings Distract From More Imminent AI Concerns
Authored by Daniel Nuccio via The Brownstone Institute, AI is everywhere. It’s getting incorporated into everything. That’s simply progress, we’re told. And therefore we need to embrace it, lest we look like a Luddite and let China win (whatever that means). Yet, simultaneously, a lot of people also are afraid because of AI. Very afraid. And sometimes, we’re told that we should be afraid too. However, in public discourse surrounding AI, there often can be a lack of detail regarding what specifically we’re supposed to be afraid of. Sometimes it is not even clear what is meant by the term “AI.” Technically speaking, as I have touched on previously, one could argue (as some older computer scientists do) that AI is an umbrella term for a family of algorithms based in math that sometimes dates back more than a half-century. Practically speaking, numerous programs we’ve been living with for years like Google Maps and Amazon’s recommender system can be thought of as AI despite their lack of novelty. Yet, in public discourse, the term AI tends to …
