All disruptive technology comes with good and bad—and inevitable unintended consequences, good and bad
Every breakthrough technology arrives with complex, mixed blessings, promising Olympian leverage (and greater profits) by disrupting the usually skeptical, resistant status quo. But as the supreme Law of Unintended Consequences complicates even the Law of Magical Inventions or the Law of Human Progress via Technology, there could be positive, unexpected deliverables. Certainly, new machinery funded by huge corporate interests directly serve masters, but along the way often advance human life and welfare. Everyone, even stunted deniers, benefits from mass vaccines, antibiotics, miracle drugs and ER access.
Nationalizing railroads, second to none as a towering 19th Century achievement, spurred coast to coast development with global, predictable trade-offs. Private property ownership and industrial mining of hardly inexhaustible natural resources exploded as the west was quickly populated, then ransacked (furthering the genocide of Native Americans). Profit-crazed railroad tycoons concocted a price-controlling monopoly while massive job growth and new cities flourished, eventually lifting all (usually white, immigrant) boats.
No world-shaking discovery fails to scare the bejesus out of multitudes, whether electricity, pollution-spewing gas engines, or factory industrialism in the 19th/20th centuries. Stages later welcomed the globe-shifting silicon computer, nuclear power, the internet and today Artificial Intelligence, robotics and quantum computing. No surprise the already dominant, dozen technology monoliths will invest $400 billion just this year on AI, with limitless applications for instant information-sharing, labor efficiencies and greater marketing clout. Top US CEOs got unconscionably rich because they are savvy about massive spending for devices that serve their dreams of avarice, if not power-mongering (thus obscene payoffs to a boorish, increasingly discredited president whose business mastery and clownish leadership can’t match theirs).
Better living through gimcrackery?
Whatever, modern capitalism worships technological breakthroughs, whether industrial machinery (lowering product costs) or securing overhead savings (thus displacing costly workers). Renaissance capitalism was just initiating double-entry bookkeeping (a magnitude better tracking costs, payments and profits) when Gutenberg’s mechanized typesetting provided affordable books, inciting literacy and democratizing knowledge as never before. That revolution well served the anti-establishment Protest-ant rebellion by stressing redeemable souls only had to engage the Good Book to find the path to salvation. Thus half of Europe exiled the corrupt, authoritarian Vatican mandate that only vetted priests could oversee high mass or confession and absolution of sins. Thus did the technology of the written word for the masses change the world.
Installing piped gas for illumination made Victorian city streets far safer and radically changed domestic life, especially at night (dimmer candles were always dangerous, though gas conflagrations struck, too). The wonder of electricity on streets and homes was greatly feared, especially when unwise users were electrocuted. The point is that the more powerful the technological breakdown, the more dramatic the potential downsides. Consider truly scary trade-offs of nuclear power (devastating, war-ending bombs but also as power supplies); ditto, rocket science—whose stunning travel options came with high risk of explosion.
Thus AI, whatever its business payoffs, comes with serious downsides, especially when deceptively fabricating fakery. The omnipresence of the internet is enough of a menace without further leverage to manufacture fake news on a budget. It would be a miracle equal to AI were it to damp down delusional conspiracies, let alone reams of infamous lying. Yet, while predators can misuse anything, what about AI’s ability to summarize honest reporting, even massively correct unspeakable folly. If corporate ownership dominates, so will dishonestly.
Can truth live next to manipulation?
We already live in such a media-obsessed culture that one can’t imagine the utter perversity ofTrumpism without manipulated social media across scams and hacking, domestic and overseas. After making a mockery of primary and campaigning constraints, if not party control, Trumpism has pulled off a shocking inversion of once-dominant moral checks. Indeed, reckless, misinformed voters now endorse unspeakable criminality and rampant rule-breaking. By violating all prior checks and balances for qualified leaders—rife with calumny, name-calling, false promises, and outrage for the sake of outrage—the right co-opted the federal government. What Trumpism teaches us is that the more top-down, covert and accessible is communications technology, the greater chance to manipulate aggrieved, gullible hearts and minds. When MAGA passions rule, even the reality of heart-rendering takeaways like health care, inflation and unemployment evaporate like greenhouse gases.
And yet, my informal survey shows that AI, especially on google, amazon, and ChatGPT, is not yet wedded to overt partisan propaganda. Google rebukes the odious MAGA distortion that the “left radicals” killed Charlie Kirk, citing a slew of accurate media outlets and concluding “no definitive conclusion” can “be drawn about the motivations behind the killing at this time,” offsetting outlandish Trumpian slanders. When asked if Trump caused the Jan 6 riots, ChatGPT summarizes, “while Trump’s speech and actions leading up to the riot are widely considered to have stoked the violence, the legal question of incitement is still being argued in courts, and the political debate remains deeply divided,” hardly the defense MAGA wants. Oddly, ChatGPT software, for good or ill, is a year behind, denying Charlie Kirk is dead.
In terms of political intervention of AI, google responded to the question, “what laws constrain AI?,” with an extensive list of enacted regulations, citing the “forefront” European Union AI Act as “the first comprehensive legal framework” with a “risk-based approach” that now bans threats to “safety, livelihoods, and fundamental rights,” including “social scoring and harmful manipulation.” The act attempts to regulate “critical sectors like healthcare, employment, and law enforcement before being placed on the market.” Further, on transparency, the law bans “impersonation or deception, like chatbots,” subject to disclosure requirements such as specifying when a user is “interacting with an AI.” Models like “generative AI must maintain technical documentation and comply with EU copyright law” and on liability for errors or subterfuge “make it easier for individuals harmed by AI systems to seek compensation.”
America, behind as usual
Au contraire, vs. the EU, the USA is still plagued with “a patchwork of federal, state, and local regulations,” with inadequate, specious “Executive Orders” that encourage AI innovation and paltry phrases about “risk management.” The FTC, FCC and SEC have issued rules on “specific AI applications, such as AI-generated voices in robocalls and AI-related fraud.” States like Colorado (with the first comprehensive AI legislation) mandate that developers and deployers of “high risk” AI systems use “reasonable care” to “prevent algorithmic discrimination in consequential decisions.” A pending California “No Robo Bosses” Act prohibits using AI as the “sole basis for firing an employee.” Other states have passed laws to “protect an individual’s voice and likeness from unauthorized AI mimicry.” In short, AI powerhouses rule until stopped.
Essential and pertinent fairness laws are early on, with inadequate legal protections on the already conspicuous negative impacts. Bought politicians and well-heeled corporate types will need to face huge pressure because they won’t self-regulate. Insinuating every nook and cranny, AI potency and range will deliver unknowable unintended consequences, some good, some bad. In theory, because of the fluid openness and over time relative affordability, AI can have positive, even democratic outcomes, like the telephone, cheaper transport, computers, TVs, and appliances. But benefits for the people won’t come easy and there’s never a free lunch for truly mind-boggling new gadgetry with enormous potential.
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