Saturday, June 21, 2025
Thinking systematically about the risks of AI requires two lines of thinking. First of all, we have to establish what it is we want and don’t want. Secondly, we then have to find the most effective ways of imposing our preferences.
— Richard E. Susskind
AI (so-called) may be inevitable. Certainly generative AI and other technologies for making associations within large collections of data are here already, and tech cheerleaders push the claim that there’s nothing we can do to stop the tech.
The question, as Humpty Dumpty told us, is Which is to be master. Mr. Dumpty, of course, was presuming that an individual could control language, and we recognize that claim as absurd since we use language within a speech community which no individual controls. Indeed, language may even be beyond the control of its community. But is AI beyond community control?
The intent for this month’s program is that it be a discussion of how individuals can use AI while remaining true to their own ethical codes and how the human community can control AI in order to make it work for the community as a whole. We’ll look at issues in ethics, environmental responsibility, the economy, government, and whatever issues participants bring.