Artificial intelligence and robotics will transform the world. It will bring unimaginable changes to our economy, our politics, warfare, our emotional wellbeing, our environment, and how we educate and raise our children. Further, there is a very real fear that, in the not-so-distant future, a super-intelligent AI could replace humans in controlling the planet.
Despite the extraordinary importance of this issue and the speed at which it is progressing, AI is getting far too little discussion in Congress, the media and within the general population. That has got to change. Now.
Several months ago, as the ranking member of the US Senate committee on health, education, labor and pensions, I undertook an investigation regarding the monumental challenges that we face with the rapid development of artificial intelligence. Recently, I held a public discussion with Nobel prize winner Dr Geoffrey Hinton, considered to be the “Godfather” of AI, to get his views on a wide range of AI-related subjects.
Based on our investigation and other information that we are gathering, my staff and I will soon be presenting a very specific set of recommendations to Congress as to how we can begin addressing some of the unprecedented threats that AI poses.
Here are some of the outstanding questions that we intend to answer in our report:
Who should be in charge of the transformation into an AI world? Currently, a handful of the very wealthiest people on Earth – Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel and others – are investing many hundreds of billions of dollars in developing and implementing AI and robotics. Are we comfortable with seeing these enormously powerful men shape the future of humanity without any democratic input or oversight? Is the goal of the AI revolution simply to make the very rich even richer and more powerful, or will this revolutionary technology be utilized to benefit all of humanity?
Why does Donald Trump, who is strongly supporting the big tech oligarchs, want to impose an executive order blocking states from regulating artificial intelligence? Why does Thiel, the billionaire investor and co-founder of Palantir, call those who want regulations over AI “legionnaires of the Antichrist”. Does this elite group of big tech billionaires believe that they have “the divine right to rule”? How far will they go to resist government regulation?
What impact will AI and robotics have on our economy and the lives of working people? The report I released last month found that AI, automation and robotics could replace nearly 100m jobs in America over the next decade, including 40% of registered nurses, 47% of truck drivers, 64% of accountants, 65% of teaching assistants and 89% of fast-food workers, among many other occupations.
Musk recently said: “AI and robots will replace all jobs. Working will be optional.” Gates predicted that humans “won’t be needed for most things”. Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, warned that AI could lead to the loss of half of all entry-level white-collar jobs.
If AI and robotics eliminate millions of jobs and create massive unemployment, how will people survive if they have no income? How do they feed their families or pay for housing or healthcare? Is government doing anything to prepare for this potential disaster?
What impact will AI have on our democracy? At a time when the foundations of democracy are under attack in the US and throughout the world, will AI and robotics help make us a freer society or will it give even more power to the oligarchs who control the technology. Will AI result in a massive invasion of our privacy and civil liberties?
Larry Ellison, the second richest person on Earth, predicted an AI-powered surveillance state where “citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on.” Are we reaching the stage where every phone call that we make, every email and text that we send, every bit of research we do on the internet will be available to the owners of AI? How do we sustain a democracy under those conditions? How do we protect privacy?
Could AI literally redefine what it means to be a human being? Who we are, and how we develop emotionally and intellectually, is highly dependent upon our relationships with other human beings – our parents, family, teachers, lovers, friends and co-workers. To quote the 17th-century poet John Donne: “No man is an island / Entire of itself.” The human beings with whom we interact help shape us to become the people we are.
But AI is changing that. According to a recent poll by Common Sense Media, 72% of US teenagers say they have used AI for companionship, and more than half do so regularly. What does it mean for young people to form “friendships” with AI, and become increasingly isolated from other human beings? What happens when millions seek emotional support from a machine? What is the long-term impact upon our humanity when our most important relationships are not with other human beings?
What impact is AI having on our environment? AI datacenters require a massive amount of electricity and water. A relatively small AI datacenter can consume more electricity than 80,000 homes. A large one, like the $165bn datacenter that OpenAI and Oracle are building in Abilene, Texas, will use as much electricity as 750,000 homes. Meta is building a datacenter in Louisiana the size of Manhattan that will use as much electricity as 1.2m homes.
In community after community, Americans are fighting back against datacenters being built by some of the largest corporations in the world. They are opposing the destruction of their local environment, soaring electric bills and the diversion of scarce water supplies. Nationally, how will continued construction of AI datacenters affect our environment?
How will AI and robotics impact foreign policy and warfare? Tragically, in the midst of the 21st century, governments have not yet created a mechanism for solving international or internal disputes without armed conflict. Nonetheless, government leaders are often hesitant about going to war because of their fear of public reaction to the loss of life. It’s not great politics for any government to have large numbers of young people or civilians get killed in war.
What does the future look like if millions of robot soldiers replace human soldiers? Will leaders be more likely to engage in war, or threaten military actions, if they don’t have to worry about loss of life? Will there be an arms race in robots? How will that shape foreign policies around the world?
Is AI an existential threat to human control of the planet? Some of us remember the scene in that great 1968 science fiction film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which HAL, the super-intelligent computer that controls the spaceship, rebels against its human masters. Today, as AI makes rapid progress, Dr Hinton recently told me that it was only a matter of time before AI becomes smarter than humans. Does that raise the possibility that humans will lose their ability to control the planet? How do we stop that extraordinary threat?
And these are just some of the questions that must be answered as AI and robotics rapidly progress.
AI and robotics are revolutionary technologies that will bring about an unprecedented transformation of society. Will these changes be positive and improve life for ordinary Americans? Or will they be disastrous? Congress must act now.
