Athens Democracy Discussion board: Are Synthetic Intelligence and Democracy Suitable?

This text is from a particular report on the Athens Democracy Discussion board, which gathered consultants final week within the Greek capital to debate international points.

Moderator: Liz Alderman, chief European enterprise correspondent, The New York Instances

Speaker: Nick Clegg, president, international affairs, Meta

Excerpts from the Rethinking A.I. and Democracy dialogue have been edited and condensed.

LIZ ALDERMAN A.I. clearly holds monumental promise and may do all types of latest issues. A.I. may even assist us probably remedy a few of our hardest issues. But it surely additionally comes with dangers, together with manipulation, disinformation and the existential menace of it being utilized by unhealthy actors. So Nick, why ought to the general public belief that A.I. might be a boon to democracy, fairly than a possible menace towards it?

NICK CLEGG I believe the general public ought to proceed to order judgment till we see how issues play out. And I believe, like every main technological innovation, know-how can be utilized for good and for unhealthy functions, can be utilized by good and unhealthy individuals. That’s been the case from the invention of the automobile to the web, from the radio to the bicycle. And I believe it’s pure to concern the worst, to attempt to anticipate the worst, and to be fearful notably of applied sciences that are tough to understand. So I believe it’s not stunning that in latest months, definitely since ChatGPT produced its giant language mannequin, lots of the main target has centered on attainable dangers. I believe a few of these dangers, or not less than the way in which a few of them are being described, are operating actually fairly far forward of the know-how, to be candid. , this concept of A.I.’s creating a form of autonomy and an company of their very own, a form of demonic want to destroy humanity and switch us all into paper clips and so forth, which was various the form of early dialogue.

ALDERMAN We haven’t reached “Terminator 2” standing.

CLEGG Yeah, precisely. As a result of these are programs, keep in mind, which don’t know something. They don’t have any actual significant company or autonomy. They’re extraordinarily highly effective and complex methods of slicing and dicing huge quantities of knowledge and making use of billions of parameters to it to acknowledge patterns throughout a dizzying array of knowledge units and knowledge factors.