How not to talk about an AI-powered future
Whenever I read prominent figures talking about the dangers of AI, I feel like they are missing the mark.<p>I don&#x27;t think the imminent dangers of AI are self-conscious machines rebelling and deciding to kill people, but a much more subtle and nuance problem.<p>Let&#x27;s say that you go to a bank and ask for a loan. The bank has a procedure to decide if they give you the loan or not. If your request is rejected, they can (hopefully) explain why you didn&#x27;t qualify.<p>Instead, the whole process gets offloaded to a learning AI that makes that decision for the bank. For the most part, we don&#x27;t really understand why systems like neural networks make a decision. Now if the banks denies your loan, the best they can say why is &#x27;huh, the computer said so&#x27;.<p>What if suspiciously the banks start rejecting applications from an specific minority? Has the AI determined that this particular minority is trustworthy? Does it even matter?<p>What when AI systems are introduced in legal procedures? What when an AI decides if someone will go to jail or not?<p>Maybe I&#x27;m out of the loop but I feel these are more pressing issues about the widespread use of AI that are not being talked about enough (definitely much less than the doomsday scenario).