Is AI a force for good?

"You know the biggest problem with AI? Wrong direction. I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes."  -  SciFi author Janna Maciejewska

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is everywhere these days. You may not have thought where it is being used, but I bet it has helped you already today in many different ways. Whether it is your smart watch, car sat nav, door alarm, or mobile phone app, it is there. AI is the buzzword of the software industry at the moment. If you're a business who's not using it, or at the very least looking to use it, you're behind to curve.

So we should be afraid of it right? Not really. Like any newish venture, it can have unpleasant side effects if not implemented properly. In the case of a smart watch, it could tell you you're in a fine fit of health when you should be taking yourself to A&E. Your sat nav could lead down a road and over a cliff. We're not at a stage where we should trust AI, so we're safe from a James Bond villain for now.

That's not to say we shouldn't be weary of how it is developed. Take the following examples of AI mentioned in a recent issue of Private Eye magazine:

• Perplexity have launched a "shopping assistant" in the US. It lets you ask for product recommendations, and lets you buy them without visiting the merchant's website. Asked how the product selects product recommendations Perplexity's CEO said, "To be honest with you, in terms of how the ranking works, I don't think we understand it fully ourselves."
• Sauron has a home security system and is looking at how it can use AI to take countermeasures if a problem was suspected. Could it take out a burglar with a bullet?

It is because of this that I don't fear AI. We need safeguards and thorough testing of applications for sure, but we also need human oversight. Like any algorithm, it is data based and that doesn't include intuition or nuance. Yes some jobs will largely disappear. Others will change significantly, but this has been happening since man and woman walked this earth.

AI can be a cause for good. It will change the way we live and work. It already does. You can't really avoid. It's here to stay. So let's embrace it.

Finally if your thinking of raging against the machine, take heart from Korean users of X (formally Twitter). Appalled by the platforms unilateral decision to use their content to train it's AI model, users have taken to describing how to "destroy Elon Musk's testicles with a spinning kick." What seems like a healthy traditional activity has the result of contaminating the model.