AI and Government
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
—Yogi Berra
“Artificial intelligence is the future not only for Russia but for all humankind. It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the leader of the world.”
—Vladimir Putin
Is the use and development of AI, a national security issue? Is it an issue about which that those charged with national governance should be concerned? As a former Governor of Alaska would aver, “You betcha.” The question then becomes, have our nation’s current elected leaders stayed current with this life-changing national security issue or have their generations not kept up with this exciting science? Too many career politicians have never had to work in a world impacted by such a technological revolution.
How important is this issue? As early as 2018, Chinese scholars and military think tanks published 41,000 articles on AI. As a dictatorship they can force mobilization around any such issue or technology. In our country, we have to act more prudently in accordance with our professed values. In that same year US university researchers published just 25,500 articles. China is investing billions of dollars in AI, and in the US we are just trying to catch up. Meanwhile the UK just 3 years ago pledged to produce 1,100 new PhD’s in AI. They are taking the challenge seriously. Others around the world are taking the lead, while we worry about pronouns, drag queens, and bathrooms. When queried about the future of AI, Elon Musk, in a 2014 Washington Post article said: “we are summoning a Demon.” The next year, in 2015, Musk joined Stephen Hawking, Noem Chomsky, and 8,000 scholars in writing an open letter to the government in which they warned about the “pitfalls of AI development.” It’s just “2 letters,” alright, but probably the most important 2 letters since AE (atomic energy), with even more humanity-changing possibilities than a mushroom cloud.
Let’s admit up front that in regard to all varieties of STEMM learning (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, & Medicine) currently China is way out in front. China has been rated for the last 4 years number one in the world in such learnings. Their chosen propaganda vehicle for the moment is Tik Tok. Within China, Tik Tok carries only educational programming designed to bolster math and science skills of the Chinese millennial and younger population groups. Elsewhere, in the USA in particular, Tik Tok carries soft, unacademic, content dealing with movies, politics, music, pornography, humor, and center city debacles in major American metropolitan areas. That was a CPC political decision. In this country, Tik Tok is currently rated as the number one news source for those in the Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Alpha age groups. China is educating our youth.
As one small feature of the use of AI, China has been harvesting data on its citizens through such sources for years to achieve social control, with each citizen being assigned a social credit score to determine where they can shop, what they can purchase, and when, how, and where they can travel. Tik Tok is just AI lite. Meanwhile in the USA, our social media sources are also concerned with harvesting data. Mark Zuckerberg has glibly hypothesized that Facebook is gathering so much information on us, data we voluntarily give it, that it would soon know every book, film, and song we ever consumed and every website we ever opened so that pretty soon anyone of us could travel to a strange city and Facebook could tell us what bar to visit, and the bartender would have our favorite drink waiting for us. That is glib but a little frightening. We may be able to encourage some ethical behavior from US institutions—maybe—but can we expect the same thing from developers in China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia?
The important question I have pondered, as we progress in our understanding of the benefits and possible disastrous consequences of new developments in the field of AI is what is the appropriate role of government in using, developing, and monitoring this technology? More importantly, perhaps, is, if not them, who? Let me define some terms. AI has been a known category of scientific advancement since the term was coined by John McCarthy at a 1956 Dartmouth Math convention. So far it can be used to control an autonomous vehicle, gather and collate data regarding past events, collect and analyze massive amounts of data, predict catastrophic weather conditions, or even diagnose an illness with far greater accuracy than a family doctor with a laptop on his desk to search WebMD as you list symptoms. Questions regarding most things that “can be done” through human intellect can have the answer provided, if not enhanced, though AI. It has an almost unconceivable ability to gather and synthesize massive amounts of data. If we are going to “trust the data,” AI can help us gather end analyze even more of it. What it cannot answer is “should something be done?” That is currently, the prerogative of the coder or programmer and the collective sources of her or his values.
Most of what scientists and programmers have wrestled with this far is rightly referred to as AI—two letters that have the ability to do better on an individual task what human intelligence currently does and perhaps uncover tasks we have not even thought about yet. It is one thing, however, to use AI to create a machine that can control an autonomous vehicle, raise an artificial leg or arm or create an artificial heart; they can be great innovations. It is, though, an altogether different thing to build a machine that can replicate the thought process used by a human when he or she decides to lift a limb or have an autonomous vehicle decide when faced with a scenario wherein the car must either hit a pedestrian, T-bone a school bus, or drive into a brick wall. The former is AI; it is an exciting enhancement of intelligence. The latter, involving ethical and moral considerations and the thought process involved behind such innovations, is best referred to by three letters as AGI—artificial general intelligence. AGI is concerned with building complex systems that must include all the ethical and world view considerations that are best left to philosophers, ethicists, theologians, and apologists to consider. We are not there yet and may never get there.
We watch today as government tackles, some might say propagandize and micromanage, developments related to environmental issues, climate change, private sector businesses, regulatory policies, reaction to CDC pronouncements, gun control, religious liberty, and a host of other issues impacting Constitutional issues dealing with human freedom. The question is, do we want government—particularly federal government and its agencies controlling, monitoring, and perhaps censoring unprecedented scientific thought such as involved in the field of AGI? Admittedly there are numerous potential risks for AI of which government should be aware. These include but are assuredly not limited to security vulnerabilities, regulatory challenges, economic disparities, national security, privacy concerns, environmental impact, bias and discrimination, job displacement, unemployment, loss of control of autonomous systems, and social manipulation.
As our knowledge about AI increases, I suggest that in regard to AI (by that I mean specific task enhancements) that government leave the majority of these issues to the private sector, which always outstrips government in innovation, and keep hands off larger considerations of AGI. I will work to ensure that such is the case. We will be amazed at what capitalism can create.
When it comes to AGI, government’s role should include the ability to fund and encourage innovation and sponsor a series of continual conferences, seminars, convocations, and other research gatherings of interested parties from academia, and the public and private sectors to ensure that thought leaders from disciplines as wide spread as philosophy, ethics, science, theology, military, medicine, manufacturing, R&D, as well as private entrepreneurs to name just a few interested parties in order to expand our current limited knowledge regarding how this discipline will develop. More importantly, government should establish a series of focused Working Groups of a-political experts from diverse generations and disciplines to research and uncover successful paths to each of the above referenced issues. To date, we do not thoroughly understand how human reason functions, let alone how a complex machine, however advanced, could have such rational or ethical implications embedded in a collection of algorithms.
I said earlier that the two letters, A I are perhaps the most important 2 letters since A(tomic) E(nergy). When we saw the world threatened by other nations investigating the military uses of nuclear energy last century, our government launched probably the most important research project in history. On December 28, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the formation of the Manhattan Project to bring together various scientists and military officials working on nuclear research. The Manhattan Project was the code name for the American-led effort to develop a functional atomic bomb during World War II. We succeeded, and that war ended.
I believe it is time to launch a new research project at one of our universities, maybe call it the Purdue project or the IU project or Notre Dame Project in which we lead the world in understanding the future possibilities of AGI and once again lead the world in this kind of learning.
Let’s tread carefully and thoughtfully in understanding the implications of AGI. We can revolutionize the role of government and make it, particularly the People’s House, a leader in gathering the best ideas from every sector of our population to ensure that the steps we take in the future truly reflect the best ideas from every sector of our society, the values of our people, and our God-endowed natural rights and allow us to become the leaders of the world in creating a truly advanced ethical future in this country and beyond. The end being to preserve our freedoms and ensure the future of our representative republic.