January 24, 2024
The Real Issue with Artificial Intelligence: The Misalignment Problem
Breathtaking advances in technology, from genetic engineering to quantum computing, have opened policy vistas and security challenges that were completely unanticipated even five years ago. The next decade will bring smaller devices, larger networks and anthropomorphic computers that will extend human thought — where they don’t replace human thought — beyond, literally, imagination or belief.
The real hazard is not machine-derived calamity. It is bad human decisions that are accelerated and amplified by AI.
Although AI-doomsday forecasts designed to stoke public anxiety make great headlines and popular podcasts, from the perspective of many Ph.D.-level scientists and engineers the life-under-borg predictions are strangely overwrought. One of the reasons artificial intelligence (AI) captures so much attention is that it, like satellite navigation and drug discovery, is hardly distinguishable from magic. Large language models like Bard, Copilot and ChatGPT sound like a real person, which makes their wizardry even more fascinating. But they are fraught with errors and sweet-sounding hallucinations, and they will never be infallible.
Read the full article from The Hill.
More from CNAS
-
How Can the Trump Administration Strengthen U.S. AI Leadership?
Podcast
With a new administration just around the corner, now is the time for the US to strengthen its position as a global leader in AI. Even with changing leadership, there remain n...
By Paul Scharre
-
How China’s Antitrust Tactics Undermine U.S. Tech Leadership
Commentary
If the United States fails to address this threat, it risks not just losing ground in the technology race, but ceding control over the rules that govern it....
By Ruby Scanlon
-
Sharper: Tariffs
Commentary
The incoming Trump administration has signaled that tariffs will be a central pillar of its economic strategy, with significant implications for international trade, the Ameri...
By Eleanor Hume, Charles Horn & Gwendolyn Nowaczyk
-
Technology to Secure the AI Chip Supply Chain: A Working Paper
Reports
Advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems, built and deployed with specialized chips, show vast potential to drive economic growth and scientific progress....
By Tim Fist, Tao Burga & Vivek Chilukuri
