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As we develop AI to become increasingly efficient at processing and analyzing data, we must think ahead about areas of society that are most at risk of being dramatically altered. A robust AI policy plan will need to outline major areas of concern while still allowing expansion or refinement in the future as the path of artificial intelligence becomes more clear. Such a policy can only be built over time, with great effort and the collaboration of many experts and stakeholders. And the longer we delay those discussions, the greater risk we place upon ourselves.

We Need to Act Now

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla Motors and Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX), addressed the possible societal impacts of artificial intelligence last year. “There is a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation,” Musk told CNBC, later adding, “there has to be some improved symbiosis with digital super intelligence.”[ 6] Whether that’s a cautious warning or a call for optimism about our robotic future depends on your perspective—a universal basic income would involve enormous changes to world economies, but then again, artificially intelligent systems may do the very same. Either way, it’s a clear indication that Musk sees AI playing a very large role in our future society.

There’s still a very large debate go-
ing on in the artificial intelligence field
between people who believe “true” AI is
ultimately a mythical concept that we’ll
never produce and people who believe
it is both very possible and very likely
catastrophic. The former group claims
that fears of a menacing, destructive AI
program have no basis in reality—that
machine learning is fundamentally dif-
ferent than true intelligence, which
means that computer programs are in-
capable of sentience. The latter group
believes that our human brains may
be unable to even imagine the kind of
intelligence we may be creating, and
so we must be very careful about the
kinds of programs we develop and the
kinds of moral, human values we put
into them. As Paul Ford explained in his
profile of artificial intelligence in the
MIT Technology Review in 2015: “We’re
basically telling a god how we’d like to
be treated.”[ 7]
There’s no way to be certain which
scenario we will ultimately face. How-
ever, that doesn’t mean we have to wait
around before we start adapting.