Page 70 - Monocle Quarterly Journal Vol 3 Issue 2 Spring

MONOCLE QUARTERLY JOURNAL | DEEP LEARNING
of our fiercely-competitive Darwinian design – not machines, that naturally seek to dominate, domesticate and destroy our environment, and those beings in it. Furthermore, Pinker argues that, like the greatest and most important technological advancements that have come before, we are in fact very effective at curbing the dangers of the potentially harmful aspects of any new
it actually is, which is relatively simple and accessible mathematics super-imposed on very large data sets. It is these data sets that are now largely dominated by Big Tech, which continues to collect more data about us than has ever been collected before, that should be our main concern. Lawmakers have yet to come to terms with the significant power that exists within our personal data and how best to make use of the institutions that make up the framework of our economic systems, including banking. In the meantime, however, Big Tech has exploited the lack of effective regulations to continue to plunder our personal information, and to do so, ironically, with our tacit approval. It is not AI itself that we should fear, but rather the oxygen that it breathes, which is in fact our data.
For this reason, it is now more than ever critical for us to dispel the misnomers associated with artificial intelligence. Until a machine can acquire language and the full range of human emotion, it seems that artificial intelligence is just that – artificial. It is thus nothing more than a useful tool and nothing to be feared. What we must fear, however, is the colonisation of our personal data and the balance between regulation and the invasion of our privacy – and banking, as an extension of the state, is on the very frontlines of this war. ■
...we are in fact very effective
at curbing the dangers of the
potentially harmful aspects
of any new technologies.
technologies. To illustrate this point, he describes how when inventing the car – whilst at first very dangerous in terms of a complete lack of safety features – we have in time made this important technological invention safer thanks to the addition of many adaptations, such as bumpers, airbags, ABS, seatbelts and, more recently, intelligent technologies, including automatic emergency brake assist and driver inattention warning systems.
Perhaps the most significant danger of artificial intelligence is a misunderstanding and hysteria in respect to the concept itself. It is too commonly perceived as some kind of external super-technology, rather than what
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