If we get AI right, we will all capture the extraordinary benefit… if we don’t, we may not live to tell the tale
ARTIFICIAL intelligence is many things. A genie on command. A paradise technology. A god-like machine. A digital soul. Apocalypse in a box.
Talking about AI has become so normal of late that it is easy to forget just how astonishing it really is — literally making a machine think.
Until recently it was the stuff of science fiction and banished to a future none of us would ever live to see.
But not any more.
For the first time ever, we are creating technology that can think and create.
Every day it is becoming more advanced and we are heading to a point where the machines may soon outsmart us.
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And nobody knows quite what to do about it — and that concerns me.
I joined No10 Downing Street during the first lockdown of the Covid crisis as a science and technology adviser.
There were historic and great successes, such as the Vaccines Task Force.
But with a seat in the room where key decisions were made in those turbulent times, I saw a government machine that could also struggle to grasp the unfamiliar world of a pandemic.
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There are worrying signs history is now repeating itself as the planet reacts to dramatic advances in AI.
We stand on the edge of a tech-nological leap akin to magic.
Like magic, AI too can be used for good or evil.
Will it be Harry Potter or Voldemort, Gandalf or Saruman?
Consider the positives.
AI could help cure diseases such as cancer and dementia.
I am blind in one eye and have a chronic pain condition.
I dream that AI might find a cure for this.
It could invent new forms of energy so cheap that we barely notice our bills. It is already doing some of this.
Doomsday risks
But it could have a dark side too, which some of the godfathers of AI, such as Geoffrey Hinton, have been warning about.
AI has the potential to shatter our sense of truth and manipulate us.
It could outsmart us, control us and bring about our downfall.
Imagine a vastly smarter intelligence living inside the phone in your pocket, trying to control your beliefs.
Think about the havoc a mere computer virus can wreak on our critical infrastructure such as hospitals.
And now consider if it was instead a super-intelligent computer virus with the capacity to copy rapidly, learn, adapt and strategise — always staying one step ahead of our inferior brains.
Common sense says this is not a good outcome, but common sense has been lacking in thinking about this challenge.
We need to create a path where AI brings us these extraordinary benefits without the doomsday risks.
If we get it wrong, we might not be here to know it.
PM Rishi Sunak has said he is focused on this challenge, but we need to raise the ambition and speed.
FIRST, this debate must come out of the shadows so the public can engage.
The ivory tower must not create a super-intelligent machine without us all in the conversation.
When I discuss this in my local Devon pub, the debate is far more sensible than what I hear in Westminster.
Should we create this technology at all? Who will benefit from it?
Who will be controlling it? Why isn’t sorting this the Government’s top priority?
SECOND, we must realise we are uniquely placed to lead on this technology and act accordingly.
For a start, our DeepMind lab is one of the best AI hubs in the world.
We too often forget what a plucky and inventive island we can be.
Who would have thought we could play such a role marshalling the world to defend Ukraine?
Too often a spirit of accepting decline is in our political class.
The Vaccines Task Force showed that if our leaders have the right advice and determination, incredible things happen.
Let’s do that again here.
THIRD, we must invest more cash in creating safe forms of AI.
The Government spent more money on Covid in a day than we have spent on AI in the past decade — a 3,000-fold difference in investment levels.
It is the difference between buying a newspaper and a luxury cruise holiday for a family.
This is the defining challenge of our age. If we get it right, we will all capture the extraordinary benefit.
If we don’t, we may not live to tell the tale.
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We all have a chance to participate in perhaps the biggest milestone in human history.
Let’s make getting it right our top priority, and lead the world by creating this better future.