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Tea for two was planned in a friend’s house in California’s Beverly Hills, but, surprise, we were joined by one of the great futurist of America, a science fiction master, who turned “Fahrenheit 451” into a bestseller and himself into an admired visionary - Ray Bradbury. Bradbury who? Time is erasing memories, even of great minds - we met in the 80s at Harold Nebenzal, the producer (Cabaret) and author (Café Berlin) whose father produced German film classics as “M” (1931) and “Das Testament des Dr Mabuse (1933) and then, 1938, had to escape goose stepping hell. “Fahrenheit 451” was a scenario of dystopian America, the author oscillated between utopia and an imagined world he knew from growing up in East LA, dehumanized and fearful. Bradbury touched AI, artificial intelligence in his sci-fi collection, “The illustrated man”(1951), forever troubled by individuals willing to surrender their ethical compasses to technology. Harold suggested to avoid engaging his guest on science fiction subjects, or praising his competitors as the British science fiction icon Arthur C .Clarke (2001- Space Odyssey) No, I would not mention Isaac Asimov, either, who, in 1950, a time when futuristic books were en vogue, published his bestseller “I,Robot”, which shocked sci-fi fans with the power of Artificial Intelligence, Asimov describing robots gone mad, mind reading robots, and even robots with a sense of humor. Asimov introduced to his followers robot turned politicians, and robots, who secretly run the world. In his laws of “Robotics”, Asimov pledged that a “robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the first law, which insists a robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being come to harm .”Harold later explained that Bradbury had been traumatized by a recent earthquake and his mind was not up to space travel, or questions about the long lost paradise.
Robots must obey orders
Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein or Arthur C Clarke, all of them died without embracing mega intellectual aliens in the universe, perhaps existing on distant planets, Neptune for example, Venus or Pluto. Yes, they predicted satellites and voyages to the moon and beyond, and all of them speculated, more than half a century ago, on AI, artificial intelligence, a subject in the news these days like never before. AI has been on the mind of scientists and researchers for decades, and the “Policy Center for the New South” has shadowed the mind rattling AI potential over years: Alfredo Da Gama e Abreu Valladao, professor at Science Po, Paris, and Senior fellow of the Policy Center for the New South, publishing “Artificial Intelligence and Political Science” (September 13, 2018) or the genial professor Abdessalam Saad Jaldi, analyzing “L’intelligence artificelle au Maroc: entre encadrement réglementaire et stratégie economique”. Suddenly Artificial Intelligence is linked to the survival of humanity, Elon Musk, one of the early supporters of AI, is warning that AI could turn into an immortal dictator. Imagine, a machine, a mysterious black box filled with cables, algorithms, and programs, ready to initiate another, second Industrial revolution? The Industrial Revolution, reported the “Brookings” Institution (June 15, 2023), was built on replacing and/or augmenting the physical power of humans. Artificial Intelligence is about replacing and/or augmenting humans’ cognitive power. To conture the regulatory needs of the former with those of the latter, would be to fail to keep pace with the digital era’s velocity of change to the detriment of both consumers and companies. Abdessalam Saad Jaldi highlighted in his Policy paper “Artificial Intelligence Revolution in Africa: Economic Opportunities and legal challenges” (July 20, 2023) challenges of the adaption of AI technologies in Africa.
A brainless machine threatening the future.
At a recent conference at Yale university, a CEO summit, 40 percent of the business leaders, including the CEOs of Coca Cola and Walmart, agreed with the vision that AI, untamed, uncontrolled, “could destroy humanity in five to ten years from now” – as reported by Hana Ziady, CNN, June 15, 2023. Hype or reality, that is the question. AI is without pity, conscience, soul. A brainless machine threatening the future of mankind, ready to turn culture, history into dust? Can a machine have a mind? Yes, insists the 90 years old US- Philosophy -Professor John Searle, the appropriately programmed computer really is a mind, in the sense that computers given the right programs can be literally said to understand and have other cognitive states. Descarte on the other hand believed that animals and machines built to be like humans do not have reason. They therefor do not have mind. Who owns the truth? AI is rapidly advancing, some foresee a human evolution towards transhumanism,” a philosophical and scientific movement that advocates the use of current and emerging technologies, such as genetic engineering, cryonics, artificial intelligence and nanotechnology, to augment human capabilities and improve the human condition”( www.britannica.com) Rules and laws and treaties, developed over centuries suddenly declared invalid and obsolete by machines, which can rust, but feel no pain or guilt, do not believe in God or the devil. What seemed for decades limited to science fiction and Kubrick films in Hollywood, now turns into reality, and whoever controls the codes to these programmed monsters, will have unimaginable power to manipulate, blackmail the global society, millions of people living, possibly one day soon, in digital controlled slavery, repressed by hidden, invisible devices, which could escape their masters, Sam Altman of OpenAI in San Francisco for example, Google and its “Bard” system or Microsoft, which invested 13 billion dollars into the Altman - AI group. Are we witnessing a “Zeitenwende”, one of these epochal traumas of humanity, a turning point of history? Indeed, “policymakers everywhere from Washington to Beijing are now racing to control an evolving technology that is alarming even some of its earliest creators. Global regulators are racing to get a handle on the technology and limits the risks to society, including job security and political integrity. ”(New York Times, June 14, 2023) In the United States, the White House has released policy ideas that includes rules for testing AI systems before they are publicly available and protecting privacy rights. In China draft rules unveiled in April would require makers of chat bots to adhere to the country’s strict rules .Beijing is also taking more control over the ways makers of AI systems use data. Earlier of this year a clip played on You tube, (The Indian EXPRESS, March, 28, 2023) recorded 59 years ago by the BBC- program “Horizon” caused an avalanche of viewers, supported in their convictions that the end of our trusted earth is near, by no other than Arthur C. Clarke, the visionary. In his monologue, black and white, Clarke predicts the unstoppable future and asserts in 1964 that humans have reached the end of biological evolution and now is time for mechanical or technological growth, only that it “will be a thousand times faster.” The futurist says in a sober presentation, “the present-day electronic brains are complete morons, but this might not be true in another generation. They will start to think and eventually they will completely outthink their masters”. In March this year a report from Goldman Sachs said that AI could potentially replace the equivalent of 300 million full time jobs. Any job losses would not fall equally across the economy. According to the paper, 46 % of tasks in administration and 44 % in legal professions could be automated but only 6 % in construction and 4 % in maintenance. (BBC, March, 28, 2023) ”Artificial Intelligence has been quietly evolving behind the scenes for some time, reveals a “Brookings “report. “When Google auto completes a search query, or Amazon recommends a book, AI is at work. In November 2022, the release of Chat GPT- 3 moved AI out of the shadow, repositioning it from a tool for software engineers to a tool that is consumer-focused and ordinary people can use themselves without any need for technical expertise. Chat GPT users can have a conversation with an AI bot, asking it to design software rather than having to write the code itself. Only four months later, Open AI, the developer of Chat GPT unveiled GPT-4, the newest iteration of the foundational large language model (LLM) that powers Chat GPT, which Open AI claimed “exhibits human level performance” on a variety of tasks. Chat GPT became the fastest growing website in history, “, garnering over 100 million users in two months, an apparently illiterate population moving ever so closer to a social life imagined by Bradbury, Clarke, or George Orwell in his dark spirited novel “1984”. A world located somewhere around Britain, without laughter, soul or emotions; Feelings are punishable, since an embrace, a kiss and a tear is treason, punished by Big Brother, who is always watching you.
Fake is à la mode
AI is open to fake and manipulation, fake is a la mode, ready to assist students to cheat in their research, GPT will rewrite a doctoral thesis free of charge; the AI will replace the voice of Maria Callas or Placido Domingo with hardly a chance to detect the fake. Cheating is fashionable, not only on Wall Street, but Donald Trump is also travelling in his own mental space, glued to his conviction that HE is really President and Joe Biden an impostor. AI is capable of inventing a new travel plan for Voltaire’s “Candide”, in a few minutes or so a change is possible from romantic to a crime story, or Chat GPT will replace Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s “Italian Journey” from 1786 to 1788 to the poverty stricken South East Central in Los Angeles anno 2024, surrounding the literary giant with gang members ,who drive Goethe, his powdered wig included, on a Harley Davidson to a strip joint downtown--- the new version is done- in minutes. AI is a secret weapon, counting billions of dollars in profit, shaking the foundations of our societies, questioning the right to work, facing, the negative approach, the law of the machine. AI can invent voices, rewrite classical music. Soon there will be a top 100 hit , greetings from AI, and even if the Grammy organizers, the “Recording Academy”, announced that “only human creators are qualified”(Der Spiegel”, June 17, 2023)the kids will embrace Dua Lipa or Taylor Swift whether fake or real, a machine or a ghost - Eminem will sing forever, only it’s not his voice, it’s digital, baby, composed by a machine, distributed by machines and praised by a music critic, who is not real, but AI. We should not be shocked if tomorrow or some months to go, a documentary will be disclosed, allegedly discovered at the home of a former MI 6 spy in London, of a secret speech by Adolf Hitler revealing to a group of concentration camp thugs, that the allies, in London and Washington, did agree not to bomb train lines or highways leading to concentration camps, thus allowing Berlin to continue its mass murder. In return, says Hitler, Germany would abstain from invading the UK. A fake, yes, a historic lie, spread globally on social media, no commentary. History rewritten. “To keep the corporate AI race from becoming reckless, requires the establishment and developments of rules and the enforcement of legal guardrails”, proposed the “Brookings” Institution, “dealing with the velocity of AI- driven change, can outstrip the Federal governments existing expertise and authority. The regulatory statutes and structures available to the government today, were built on industrial era assumptions that already have been outpaced by the first decades of the digital platform era. Existing rules are insufficiently agile to deal with the velocity of AI development.” To this day no nation has ever tried to confront AI and its unpredictable infiltration into all aspects of our societies, law, parliament, industry, defense, health, education, culture. No limit for the future, no control of the instruments of radical, uncontrolled, so called progress.
The challenge of time
Until a few weeks ago- the European Union, often maligned by critics for policies, which are well intended, but lost in compromise and democratic rules, which often suggest unanimity of all 27 members. This bloc of nations, surrounded by indecision and dusted proposals, slowed, more often than not by self-centered countries as Poland and Hungary, suddenly is up in arms against AI and its radical proposals, united in purpose and triumphant the day the news hit the headlines, and newspapers like the “New York Times”( June 14, 2023) praised the EU: “ A draft law in the European parliament has become the world’ most far reaching attempt to address the potential harmful effects of artificial intelligence.”And : “ The EU took an important step forward, passing what would be the first major law to regulate artificial intelligence, a potential model for policy makers around the world as they grapple with how to put guardlines on the rapidly developing technology. The EU, for once, wrote Adam Satariano, “is further along than the US and other large Western governments in regulating AI.” The 27 nations bloc has debated the topic for more than two years, and “the issue took on new urgency after last year’s release of Chat GPT, which intensified concerns about the technology’s potential effects on employment and society .”It is uncertain whether the EU will be able to introduce the law by the end of this year, since member government and the EU institutions will have to agree with and suggest changes. After the approval in the EU parliament, the Italian co- rapporteur Brando Benifei stated:” We are on the verge of putting in place landmark legislation that must resist the challenge of time. It is crucial to build citizens trust in the development of AI, to set the European way for dealing with the extraordinary changes that are already happening ,as well as to steer the political debate on AI at the global level…” His co rapporteur, the Rumanian Dragos Tudorache, declared that “ given the profound transformative impact AI will have on our societies and economies, the AI act is very likely the most important piece of legislation in the mandate. It’s the first piece of legislation of this kind worldwide, which means that the EU can lead the way in making AI human-centric, trustworthy and safe..(NEWS European Parliament, May, 11, 2023)”.
A bold move
“It is a bold move that Brussels hopes will pave the way for global standards for a technology used in everything, from chat bots such as AI’s ChatGPT to surgical procedures and fraud detection in banks”, wrote CNN (June 15, 2023). The laws, predicted NBC (June 14, 2023) will have “huge implications to developers of generative AI models such Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s Chat GPT and Google’s “Bard.” The AI act, once approved, will apply to anyone who develops and deploys AI systems in the EU-the extent of regulations depends on the risks created by a particular application, from minimal to unacceptable. Systems that fall in the latter category, reported Hanna Ziady are banned outright: These include real time facial recognition systems in public spaces, predictive policing tools and social scoring systems, such as those in China, which assigne people a “health score” based on their behavior. High risk systems will be those used to influence voters in an election, as well as social media platforms with more than 45 million users that command content to their users- a list that would include Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The AI act also outlines transparency requirements for AI systems. Chat GPT for example, would have to disclose that their content was AI-generated, distinguish deep-fake images from real ones, and provide safeguards against generation of illegal content. “Most AI systems will likely fall into the high risk or prohibited categories, predicts CNN, “leaving their owners exposed to potentially enormous fines, if they fail foul of the regulations. Engaging in prohibited AI practices could lead up to a fine of up to 43 million dollars, or an amount equal to up to 7 % of a company’s worldwide annual turnover, whichever is higher. “CNN reporter Ziady believes the implementation of the act will take time, possibly until 2026, since revisions are likely, “given how rapidly AI is advancing. It’s time for a new generation of science fiction writers, we have passed the future as prophesied by Bradbury, Asimov and Clarke. Artificial Intelligence may direct the path humanity will chose to follow, AI may convince us to explore space as Arthur Clarke did in his phantasies, writing the science fiction novel “The Star” more than 50 years ago. In space his traveler discovers the remains of a great civilization -destroyed by a star.
