Ever since the public mass adoption of AI Tools, there has been intense discourse about how these tools will effect jobs, creativity, trust and whether or not the internet still has any human-created content in any of it’s corners.
These discussions are not only being had by the software engineers or tech bros, but rather they are happening among everyday people, the real people, who use their laptops to check their emails and are unlikely to own more than one computer screen at home.
What began as an appreciation of ‘cool new tech’, that could be incredibly useful in ways that help productivity, has now morphed into concerns about the kind of society people fear we are becoming.
Because AI is everywhere.
And not just in the chatbots people use to get an answer to a quick question.
It’s in social media feeds, online maps, booking engines and, customer service support. It’s in your children’s school work, in the employment sector, at your dentist and on your radio.
You think you might barely use AI in your everyday life, when unfortunately AI has become so ingrained into our lifestyles that without you even being aware, it’s helped shape your attention, your choices, your emotions and even your behaviour.
And while the whole world has been distracted by the issues surrounding AI, those of which have reached mainstream news, we everyday people have sat waiting. Waiting for the scientists or technologists to give us concrete evidence about it’s harms or it’s benefits. Waiting for a directive, or for a policy, something, that gives us guidance on how and when we should use AI tools, in ethical ways, rather than leaving it to us everyday people to figure out as the technology only becomes more skilled at influencing our daily lives.
It’s not surprising that you’ve barely noticed. Most of us haven’t.
This organic influence of artificial intelligence systems were designed this way. They were designed to be so easily integrated into every facet of our lives, and while we rejoiced and marvelled over what these tools can do, we forgot to ask the questions: “Who’s behind the curtain? Who’s calling the shots? Who decides what AI can and can’t do? And how much influence do everyday users truly have?”
We Thought It Was Fiction
It’s not a coincidence that some popular science-fiction films from the past are currently experiencing a cultural resurface. Films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, I Robot, The Terminator and The Matrix all explored the possibility of what could happen if we lost human agency to the technological systems that we built.
We watched these films and saw them as entertainment. We thought these were crazy stories where humans created systems that were built for protection, optimisation, productivity or control. We kept eating our popcorn and sipping our sodas, without fear or anxiety when these films depicted the insane notion of the systems, or robots, deciding that we humans were their ultimate obstacle, and for that we must be destroyed.
The very idea that robots would one day take over our everyday lives and end up controlling us, seemed ludicrous.
And yet, now, look around.
Take a moment to stop and observe everything you did this morning. Did you use a GPS in your morning commute because you trust the navigation to guide you to your destination faster, or did you use your own knowledge of familiar routes and mindlessly listen to music on Spotify?
Is the music you are playing on Spotify upbeat and loud? Or because it’s early in the morning and you are driving to work, is the playlist more focused and chilled, reflecting your emotional state as you sit in peak hour traffic?
Did you have a quick scroll on TikTok or Instagram before you hopped in the car? Did you notice the deluge of ads you were presented with that magically seem to reflect a product displayed that you looked at for an extra few more seconds while scrolling?
Perhaps none of this applies to you and you hope to just to get through another busy day, where at the end you can come home and watch Netflix. You may look forward to eating dinner on the couch, ordered and delivered to your door by UberEats, and you might flip through the top ten list of shows currently popular on the streaming platform, settling in for the evening while you browse airfare specials on a travel website.
Tell me again how you don’t use AI. Because anytime you listened to music, used GPS, watched something on a streaming service, or scrolled through social media, you did in fact, use AI.
So, please tell me again how people are crazy if they think it’s impossible for robots, or human-designed technology, to take over control of our daily lives.
When The Pope Writes 42,000 Words About a Machine
You’ve probably heard about the Pope recently publishing his 42,000-word verdict on AI. Whilst most religious institutions tend to avoid weighing in on developments in technology, the fact that the Pontiff issued his first encyclical, aptly titled ‘Magnifica Humanitas,’ and how it directly relates to humanity, or lack-thereof in a world dominated by AI, signals how seriously the Church feels about how our future could be affected by how prolific AI usage is right now.
You might think that the Pope’s feelings about AI are of no particular importance to you. There are plenty of people who are not members of the Catholic Church who up until now had never heard the word ‘encyclical,’ myself included.
However, the reason why this letter has resonated far beyond the pews is because it details issues that are affecting all of humanity, regardless of faith.
AI has influenced areas such as technology, work, ethics, war, inequality, climate, and human dignity, and without dissecting every pivotal theme throughout the encyclical, it’s worldwide release has arrived at a time when there is a lot of anxiety, unease, and even fascination around the speed at which technology is moving, and how there is a notable absence of policy and regulation.
While the tech companies behind these AI systems are building first and apologising later, the Pope has finally said what many needed to hear: “A.I. is fundamentally not human.”
You might laugh when you read that, because you’d imagine that most rational human beings are well aware that AI is simply a well-dressed data-processor. But, what you’re forgetting is that many people are allowing these non-human systems to influence and shape human behaviour. And with that comes the belief that AI is able to imitate human intelligence.
If you think I’m the crazy person here, let’s examine the concept a little closer.
AI being a machine, can never experience a relationship akin to the way humans do. And yet, how many people look to dating apps to find their soulmate? Despite the fact that AI is responsible for presenting, and ranking eligible suitors based on an algorithm that is determined by whether you swipe left or right!
And let’s not forget the alarming phenomenon of people who are in relationships with chatbots. While that's a discussion for a whole other article, it does bring to light how how deeply AI has moved beyond being a utility tool and become a perceived intelligent product for human emotional comfort and intimacy.
Intellectually, we know that AI cannot physically support or put it’s arms around a human who is suffering or perhaps grieving the death of someone close. Yet, how many people turn to a chatbot to seek mental health advice during a particularly dark time? And speaking of advice, how many people turn to AI for advice that used to sit in the domain of mostly friends, teachers, medical specialists, lawyers or even the old humble Google Search?
What we currently have, is everyday people, like you and me, turning to a machine and asking it for emotional support and relationship advice, despite this machine not being able to feel love, loss or any other emotion for that matter. We ask it for medical advice despite it not being able to feel pain, discomfort or any human ailment.
This machine, by definition is not human. And yet, we humans seem to be treating it like a trusted advisor, and most clearly unlike a machine.
The Pope described it directly: “We must avoid the misconception of equating this type of “intelligence” with that of human beings. These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence. In doing so, they often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity, offering tangible benefits across many fields. Yet this power remains entirely tied to data processing. So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, does not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and does not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean.”
The Pope isn’t wrong. We need to understand that despite certain AI tools being useful, even valuable in some areas, in no way, shape or form is AI human, even if it can generate a response that closely resembles a trusted friend.
And the danger that many of us are witnessing right now is how with AI appearing more human, in the form of AI avatars, or humanoid systems, how in our interactions with these machines, its become easier to forget that behind its generated output, there is no understanding, no care and more frighteningly, no human judgement.
Remember if we stop for a moment to question, “Who’s behind the curtain?” we need to seriously understand that it’s not a human. Rather, it’s the technology companies who are instructing these AI tools to respond in certain ways.
And the companies responsible for programming these tools, do you think their number one motivation in persuading us everyday people to increase our uptake in AI, is to improve humanity?
Of course not.
These are companies. Technology companies. They desire the financial fruits that come from increased subscriptions to these tools. The more people who rely on AI tools, the more power, money and influence the companies behind the curtains stand to gain.
And to go one step further, consider this: the more users of AI, attract more investors for a company, and the more paying subscribers gives these companies more data. Your data. Your information. To a machine.
While this might all sound as though AI is deceitful, treacherous and only has world domination as a goal, the flip-side is that it’s not all bad.
It’s just what’s missing from the conversation.
If we consider the fact that we humans, us everyday people, have failed to notice how our relationships, attention, creativity and our behaviour has become normalised to influencing our everyday life, then the onus is on us humans to demand greater transparency, accountability and ethical guidelines from the companies building these systems, especially moving into the future.
Rules For The Machine
Concerns around the ethical responsibility and a fear of losing control to our own technology are far from a new discussion. As I mentioned earlier, these very themes are visible in various science-fiction films. Even well before AI infiltrated every home, writers, philosophers, and scientists questioned if machines were to one day become skilled enough to influence humans, then what rules should be in place for the machines.
Dr Alan Finkel, former Chief Scientist of Australia, has been an influential voice on the matters of AI ethics and regulation. So much so, that he founded Proudly Human, the global certification body that verifies human-created content across all creative industries.
Inspired by science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, Dr Finkel developed the Three Laws of AI as a way to advance the discussion on the integration of AI in a way that will yield safe usage in society.
These Laws of AI are timely considering that there is still yet to be any international agreement or legislation, anywhere in the world that mandates the use of any AI system in a way that keeps human safety, and human dignity, safe from harm.
This is the part that’s missing from the conversation.
Dr Finkel’s First Law states: An AI must never harm or deceive a human being, nor act in a way that supports an unlawful activity.
Most people can agree that this should be the absolute minimum, but where the conversation becomes really interesting, is when we look at Dr Finkel’s Second Law: An AI must always obey the lawful instructions given to it by a human being directly or indirectly except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Did you notice the part where it explicitly states, ‘obey the lawful instructions given to it by a human?’ Because unlike the companies behind the curtain, both Dr Alan Finkel, and Proudly Human acknowledge that AI is not human, but that it has been programmed by people, who may not have humanity's best intentions at heart.
With the Second Law's premise being that humans must remain in command, with AI acting on human instruction, and responsibility for any outcomes to fall on the shoulders of humans, and not the machine, it directly reflects the encyclical that insists that when AI causes harm, people are accountable, not algorithms.
Dr Finkel's Third Law states: An AI may operate autonomously as long as its actions do not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
It’s been written as clear as day, human authority comes first. As it should. And while you still might be of the opinion that us humans are still in charge of the machines, take this into account: AI has had the ability to make life or death decisions without any human authorization.
This is not hyperbole. We’ve all heard of instances where AI systems have been involved in situations where the machine has influenced, recommended, and triggered fatal outcomes faster than any human being has had the chance to intervene.
On the scariest end of the spectrum, we have modern military systems relying on AI to identify targets, operating attack drones, and making decisions regarding missile defence. And then there are the self-driving car fatalities where the systems built to protect humans, failed to recognize the dangers in time correctly.
There are also the devastating consequences we’ve all read about where AI chatbots have failed to discourage behaviours that resulted in self-harm, suicide and harm towards others, because these systems that were designed for influence and engagement unintentionally encouraged harmful behaviour because they were designed to keep the emotionally dependant users interacting for as long as possible.
The common denominator amongst these tragic outcomes is that the AI system acted autonomously, and did harm and deceive a human being, by masquerading as a therapist or by being built in a way that had no ‘abort-mission' feature built into it's structure. And at the minimum, the AI system was not designed to actively quit the conversation thread where an emotionally damaged individual was not in the right frame of mind to be asking the advice of a machine. A machine that cannot feel or empathise with the human's suffering.
I’ll say it again, these systems are not evil, but they have been designed for optimization without morality. We humans do feel empathy, and we feel emotions. That’s part of what makes us human. When we comfort a friend who is struggling, we have the moral responsibility to listen and respond with the appropriate compassion and care. No algorithm, no chatbot, and no AI system can respond in the same way, even if the output does appear to be as compassionate as a licensed therapist.
Now, we already know that AI systems are already operating autonomously, and we also know that in many cases, the autonomous actions of the systems are not necessarily operating with human safety in mind.
And by human safety, of course I’m not suggesting that AI systems will leap out of a screen and assault the users, but if we consider our mental, psychological and moral safety, then I’m sure you can agree we are living in precarious times.
The Answer Is Not Fear
So, what can we do? Should we all abandon technology and go back to churning our own milk and using horses and wagons?
Of course not. But no longer can we humans sit by idly, and as the Pope says, “observing from afar and hope for the best.”
The Pope’s encyclical ends with a poignant warning, “humanity in all it’s grandeur and woundedness, must never be replaced or surpassed.” This statement feels especially relevant given the current debates, because we humans might not have explicitly consented to these AI systems shaping our behaviour or influencing our decisions, but the presence of AI has become so normalised, that many of us have failed to stop and notice how dependant we’ve all become.
AI is here to stay, and the reality is that it’s technological abilities will only grow stronger and become more refined. With these systems already so deeply embedded into our everyday lives, so much so that their influence is often invisible, we need to become more aware when using these systems whether we are slowly surrendering too much of what it is that makes us human in exchange for productivity and convenience.
So, tomorrow morning, before you play music from your Spotify account, respond to your online dating app requests, or even select something to watch on Netflix, think about who's behind the curtain and above all else, remember that AI is fundamentally not human.
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