Ahead of upcoming elections in the UK and US, artificial intelligence will threaten our democracy, a world-leading computer scientist has said.
Speaking of Beth Rigby interviews… Dame Wendy Hall said AI’s ability to undermine democracy should be more of a concern than any existential threat posed by the technology.
British artificial intelligence The skills champion told Beth: “Next year we’re going to see a rise in disinformation, deepfakes of the world, because AI makes it so much easier.
“You can get these tools from the internet, and it’s getting harder and harder to detect that a video or a photo or a piece of text is fake.”
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Mrs Wendy sits on the government’s AI committee, an “independent committee of experts” that “advises senior leaders in government and the AI ecosystem”.
In addition, Dame Wendy is also an honorary professor of computer science at the University of Southampton, and one of her specialties is artificial intelligence.
She added: “Next year we will have two major elections – the US, the UK – and the EU.
“I think it’s a threat to democracy. In a sense, we have to help people understand where they’re getting their information.
“I think it’s more important than worrying about existential threats a hundred years from now, however, I’m not saying existential threats don’t exist.
“I don’t think that’s likely at the moment.
Dame Wendy Hall speaks in interview with Beth Rigby…
“Assumption is currently unlikely, but it is possible.
“So we have to be prepared to have AI under our control so we don’t become slaves to that master, and that’s where regulation comes in.”
Dame Wendy wants the upcoming Global Summit on Artificial Intelligence in the UK to focus on deepfakes, which use artificial intelligence to add people to pictures and videos.
“We need people to quickly integrate technology for detecting fakes and making sure that something comes from a reliable source,” she said.
Despite warning that elections would be at stake, Mrs Wendy did say AI could improve decision-making by politicians by helping them condense information into a briefing, as they “often talk about things they know nothing about”.
“One of the things you can do with generative AI is give it a file and have it summarize it for you,” she said.
Mrs Wendy said another adviser to the prime minister, Matt Clifford, claimed, Artificial Intelligence May Be Capable of Underpinning Advances That ‘Kill Many People’ In just two years, people have “overreacted” to the risks posed by artificial intelligence.
Mrs Wendy said: “We’re nowhere near that. The headline saying we have two years to save the world is very misleading and the quote is taken out of context.”
She again noted that “things could get out of hand” in “future” generations.
“I’m smooth we take the lead We need to think about global regulation in AI as we think about climate science.
“We think about nuclear threats, we think about chemical-biological warfare. We have to discuss it at that level.”
How will artificial intelligence kill us? “By developing a drug that kills us all,” reckons Mrs. Wendy.
“AI technology and AI machines can develop a new drug that, if it falls into the wrong hands, could be sold as a cure for such and such a disease,” she said, noting the medical industry’s failure to recognize the potential harm of drugs such as Thalidomide amine.
‘Freedom of speech under threat’
Mrs. Wendy also spoke of the government’s difficulties Online Safety Act.
The government said the bill was introduced to protect children and target those who share illegal material, but it has been criticized because it would give authorities access to private information.
Beth Rigby interviews Lady Wendy
Tech companies also say Some of the government’s requirements to provide backdoors into people’s previously private information would weaken the technology’s protections from bad actors.
Mrs Wendy said: “We’ve got the Online Safety Act, but really the problem is: yes, we want to tackle child abuse offline.
“Yeah, we want big tech to take responsibility for really bad stuff that you can detect, track where it came from, etc., and then take it offline.
“But our free speech is at stake, and my choices are not necessarily your choices.
“It’s very hard for companies or governments to decide what we can and can’t say online; it’s a very difficult area.”
AI experts also talked about Neuralink, companies owned by elon musk Designed to connect the human brain and computer.
Mrs Wendy said it would be “fantastic” for people with disabilities – but stressed it would mean a world where “computers can read your brainwaves”.
“I find the world a bit scary, I have to say. I want to make sure we really understand what we’re doing with this technology.
“So I guess it’s a new technology that hasn’t hit the mainstream yet, but it’s definitely coming.”