​Just Because We Can Do Something Doesn’t Mean We Should
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Is it possible that, after nearly 250 years, the greatest experiment in freedom the world has ever known is on the road to self-destruction? Warning lights are flashing red all around us. Will we heed them?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is dominating much of the news reporting and political conversation as the explosive development of this vast new technology is moving at a rate that is said to be twice the speed of the internet revolution and with potential that far exceeds anything most of us can imagine. It is already finding its way deep into our everyday lives long before many of us have even grasped the basics of what it is.
Stated in a very simplistic way, AI is simulating human intelligence in machines, allowing them to learn, reason, perceive, solve problems and make decisions. The overall goal is human-like thinking in machines. Some of the core concepts are deep learning through artificial neural networks that mimic how the human brain works, the ability to understand and generate human language, and the ability to interpret and understand the world visually.
Examples of how AI is currently used include digital assistants like Siri and Alexa, search engines like Google and fraud detection used by the banking and other industries. Predictions for the future include self-driven research labs with minimal human oversight, medical and pharmaceutical discovery, personalized education, and autonomous creation and design where AI might not only develop a better car, but a better mode of transportation. Some are predicting that within 10 years we may see AI superintelligence that outperforms humans in everything it does.
Huge data centers are used in AI development to meet massive energy, security and cooling requirements. Wisconsin has been the targeted site for a number of these centers because it provides proximity to the Great Lakes for the vast amounts of fresh water required, available land and energy infrastructure. Long before we really know where these innovations will take us, there is significant opposition to the data centers by area residents who are concerned about the strain on local resources, massive energy and water consumption, and potential environmental damage. They don’t want to see the character of the communities they love altered.
“Chips” are another requirement for the production of AI that is getting a lot of attention. They are tiny electronic components essential for training and running AI applications. Many of the chips in use today are being produced in plants in Taiwan and South Korea. There is a lot of talk about bringing the manufacturing of chips back to the United States both for competitive advantage and national security.
Much of the focus on AI today is speculating about job losses that may occur as machines are able to do work that once required humans. As the Trump administration leads the fight back from the extreme economic damage of the Biden era policies, it serves the media and liberal political agenda to add fear of AI generated job losses to the American public’s concerns as many struggle to make ends meet. Some project as many as 30% of existing jobs will be able to be done by AI by 2030.
New technologies throughout the ages have always displaced workers while at the same time creating the need for new workers with new skills. The industrial revolution replaced manual farm labor with automated machinery and, in the process, created manufacturing jobs to produce the farm machinery. Computers displaced typists and secretaries and paved the way for software and web developers. Lift attendants (the elevator operators who manually ran the elevators in buildings before they were automated) and switchboard operators have been gone so long many who are alive today don’t even know what they were.
There is no question job displacement is a real issue that will have to be reckoned with as the capacity of AI expands. It will require thoughtful, ethical decision making that grapples with tough questions about societal benefit. But job displacement is far from the only, or even most important, thing we need to be thinking about with this disruptive technology at our doorsteps.
A member of my family recently showed me a video his friend made from a single still photograph using AI. The video was a sophisticated animation of my relative engaging in activities and speaking, all artificially created but indistinguishable from reality. Evil minds will quickly figure out how to exploit AI to deceive and harm unsuspecting victims. This will be one more tool in the box of an ever-growing group of criminals who are using advances in technology to steal everything from identities to assets.
Elon Musk, a businessman and entrepreneur with an unmatched capacity for envisioning the future and tapping into it, has predicted that in the next 10 – 20 years AI will make work optional. Work, he predicts, will be a choice; like a hobby. Work as an option would bring dire unintended consequences.
There are already forces at work all across the country pushing dependence on the government as a replacement for self-sufficiency. Cook County in Illinois recently joined more than 100 other communities experimenting with “no strings attached” monthly payments from the government when they made the “Cook County Promise Guaranteed Income” permanent. This program had been piloted from 2022 – 2024 using $40 million in COVID relief funds from the Federal government for funding (an interesting twist on “COVID relief”). Now permanent, the program will provide $500 a month to 3,250 low to moderate income households to use however they wish. The stated purpose of the guaranteed income is to provide income stability and reduce financial stress.
It isn’t difficult to see where the promoters of universal basic income are headed. In Cook County it would cost $4 billion annually to extend this program to everyone at poverty level income or below. Cook County and Illinois already have the highest property tax rate in the nation, with Cook County nearly double the national median. The commercial and industrial tax rates are more than double the surrounding counties and sales tax is a whopping 10.25%. While funding is a real and significant issue for the concept of universal income provided by the government, it is far from the greatest threat it poses.
Those who are living productive lives understand that aspiration, authenticity, and achievement are irreplaceable sources of joy and freedom. All we have to do is look around to appreciate that there are epidemic numbers of broken Americans who are depressed and anxious; starving for purpose and meaning in their lives. Record numbers have turned to addictive substances in search of what they are missing; only to destroy themselves in the process. Work is integral to the complete human experience.
There is no holding back our God-given human ingenuity. The capacity to innovate is exhilarating and motivates people in the pursuit of greater and greater heights. Artificial intelligence is here to stay and will propel us to places we cannot even imagine today. It remains to be seen whether it will be used to aid and enhance our humanity or destroy it. Allowing ourselves to be passively pulled along, assuming someone else is looking out for our best interests, will prove disastrous. Just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we should.