Governments, universities and society at large need to establish "guardrails" and codes of ethics for fast-evolving artificial intelligence applications — which will revolutionize numerous institutions in the next few years — a Florida Institute of Technology panel described.
“There’s going to be a lot of bad things that happen. There’s going to be a lot of good things that happen . There’s nothing that we can do to stop any of this stuff from happening," said Michael Marks, a Bisk College of Business Advisory Board member.
"We’re going to have to talk about regulation. And you’re seeing some of the nascent attempts right now to put a framework around it," Marks said.
"But we’re still in the Wild West days. It’s going to take a while to sort it all out," he said.
Tuesday, Florida Tech's Center for Ethics and Leadership hosted a panel discussion on the effects of AI on business and society at the Denius Student Center. Marks, who is a managing partner with Indian River Consulting Group, and others highlighted the fast-emerging sector's positive and negative impacts, both now and in the near-term future.
“Experts believe that the global market for AI and enterprise applications is about to explode, with revenues projected to surge from $1.6 billion in 2018 to a whopping $31.2 billion by 2025. That translates into a 1,900% increase," President John Nicklow told the crowd, kicking off the discussion.
"So, definitely a hot topic that we need to discuss. And we must better understand," Nicklow said.
On the flip side, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study identified a database of 777 risks associated with AI. They span the gamut from malicious actors and misinformation to cybercriminals, environmental harm, unfair discrimination — and even "AI pursuing its own goals in conflict with human goals or values." Panel participants raised the specter of Skynet from the "Terminator" movies, both in joking and non-kidding contexts.
Robert Allen is a science fiction author, managing partner of AiryChat AI, and Bisk College of Business Advisory Board member. He said AI will cost many workers their jobs.
"HR professionals? They cost money — AI costs less money. Every human person that's being replaced by AI is money saved. And that is profit for shareholders," Allen said.
"So every company, top-down, wants to eliminate their costs. And a lot of those costs are eliminating redundancies, eliminating the payouts, eliminating the staff," he said.
Moti Mizrahi, a professor of philosophy who specializes in technology ethics, said he led his students in an exercise Tuesday on AI's real-world consequences. Topic: how AI health-care applications are being used to decide how long medical care will last for elderly people at a nursing facility.
"The system, of course, doesn’t know the patient as well as their doctor does. The system doesn't have empathy. It doesn't see the patient the way a human doctor sees the patient," Mizrahi said.
"And unfortunately, insurance companies are using this information to deny care to patients," he said.
"So this is one of the fundamental questions we want to ask ourselves: Do we want these kinds of decisions to be made by machines, as they say in the business, without a human in the loop?" he asked.
Ted Richardson, dean of the Bisk College of Business, said AI will serve as “disruptive innovation” for higher education, eliminating jobs and changing methods of conveying information. On a larger scale, he told the audience humans don’t get along and find flaws with each other —and we are “self-interested, territorial and greedy.”
“AI is going to understand that. AI is going to make its own decisions based on our own weaknesses, unless we get in front of that," Richardson said.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at Rneale@floridatoday.com . Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: 'Wild West': Artificial intelligence's potential, pitfalls pointed out by Florida Tech panel
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