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Katherine Forrest Discusses Ethical Implications of AI Development in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Article
April 2, 2024
In an article published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Digital Technology Group Chair Katherine Forrest discusses the ethical implications of the rapid development of artificial intelligence. In “We have no idea what we are walking into: AI and ethical considerations,” published on April 2, Katherine surveys the development of artificial intelligence in recent decades, from narrow AI models that can perform individual tasks, to today’s generative AI models that can perform a broad array of tasks. She discusses the powerful capabilities and potential of generative AI, such as reviewing financial statements, passing the bar exam, accelerating drug development, writing movies or creating deep-fake videos. “Are these capabilities unethical, or enriching,” Katherine asks. “The capabilities are just that, capabilities. The fact that humans may put them to good or bad use is a function of the human interaction, not an innate characteristic of the AI model itself. The ethical dilemma created by these capabilities is therefore primarily a human one.”
Katherine then looks ahead to potential AI sentience in the future and introduces some of the ethical questions we should ponder: Should there be a limit to what we can do with AI? Should AI have rights? If sentient artificial intelligence takes an adversarial stance toward humans, would we want it to have freedom of action? “As the velocity of change with AI continues,” Katherine observes, “there is an urgency to understanding the array of ethical issues in our midst and coming towards us, faster all the time.”
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