Here we go again. Cue the scary music. Apparently artificial intelligence is the latest monster hiding under the bed, just waiting to destroy civilization. If history has taught us anything, it’s that every major breakthrough is immediately greeted by a parade of professional pessimists demanding that we slam on the brakes.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, AI is accelerating medical and scientific research at a pace that would have seemed like science fiction just a few years ago. It is helping identify potential treatments, speeding drug discovery, and in some cases matching or even exceeding expert physicians at recognizing patterns in medical imaging. Imagine that. Instead of celebrating technology that could save millions of lives, we’re treated to another round of “This is too dangerous!”
It’s the same old routine every generation. The automobile was going to ruin society. Electricity was terrifying. Television would rot everyone’s brain. The internet was the end of civilization. Now AI has been crowned Public Enemy Number One.
Enter Chicken Little, flapping his wings in circles, screaming that the sky is falling. Right behind him come the politicians, who can barely operate their own email accounts but are somehow convinced they possess the wisdom to regulate the most transformative technology of the century. Naturally, a few self-appointed prophets are eager to declare that AI is the Mark of the Beast. Apparently every invention since the printing press has been the opening act for the apocalypse.
While they’re busy auditioning for disaster movies, the rest of us have real problems to solve. How about ending world hunger? How about developing affordable desalination so billions of people have clean drinking water? How about curing diseases instead of merely selling patients another lifetime snake oil prescription?
Artificial intelligence isn’t the villain. It’s a tool. Like electricity, antibiotics, automobiles, and the internet, it can be used for tremendous good or abused by bad actors.
The real problem has never been technology. The real problem has always been people. We don’t need to put AI on a leash. We need to keep dishonest, power-hungry people and opportunistic politicians from abusing whatever tools happen to exist.
History has a funny habit of proving the alarmists wrong. The only thing advancing faster than artificial intelligence is the speed at which some people can invent reasons to be terrified of it.
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