geoff: In San Francisco,
president Biden convened a group
of artificial intelligence
experts and consider the role of
the federal government.
Joining us is a professor of
information science at the
university of Washington.
All of the warnings about ai's
present future and concerns
about information and
misinformation, how should the
federal government approach
regulating ai without stifling
innovation?
>> It is a hard question.
On the one hand, the Biden
administration recognizes the
transformative power of
artificial intelligence and is
worried about rival nations
China getting better at ai than
we are, and at the same time, it
is hard to deny the fact that
there are consequences to the
deployment of this technology.
Those are things like the things
you mentioned, privacy,
misinformation.
Geoff: The European union is
taking steps towards passing
what would be the first major
law in regulating artificial
intelligence.
It would abandon facial
recognition.
It would require more disclosure
for programs that use artificial
intelligence.
How is the eu moving so quickly,
and could their model be fitting
for other countries?
>> Absolutely.
The European parliament passed a
draft of the ai act to heavily
regulate some risky ai, ban some
things they are not interested
in seeing, and uses a light
touch on other stuff.
The experience shows it is
possible and wise to have
regulation around artificial
intelligence.
Why are they ahead of us?
There is just a different
culture, just a different
thought process about technology
in the eu.
In the United States, we are
much more concerned about making
sure we capture the productivity
and efficiencies and innovation
and military edge something like
ai could confer, and concerned
about killing the goose that
lays the golden eggs, whereas in
Europe, they are much more
cautionary.
Geoff: How long might the
process take in this country?
It strikes me it took 50 years
to regulate cigarettes.
Regulating social media is still
an open question.
Might this come down to
companies themselves having to
establish their own guardrails?
>> I hope not.
All we have right now is this
blueprint for an ai bill of
rights, which is awfully similar
, a similar blueprint to what
the Obama administration worked
on years ago.
What would have to happen, of
course, is congress would have
to get involved or individual
states would have to pass laws.
Congress and individual states
are going to be worried about
regulating, but it should not be
left to the companies to make
these kinds of decisions.
Left to their own devices, they
are not going to fully address
for mitigate the range of harms,
whether to the environment or
job displacement, bias, privacy,
misinformation, they will not
internalize those costs unless
the government makes them do it.
Geoff: And the minute we have
left, can we talk about the
promise of ai, setting aside the
risk assessment.
What generative artificial
intelligence can do is
extraordinary, original essays,
composing music, generating
code.
What do you see on the horizon?
>> The fact we have moved from
artificial intelligence spotting
patterns to coming up with
output that is as good as a
human in some contexts is
powerful.
My hope is that it will unleash
productivity and creativity
within the arts, within music.
I hope it will also help people
with differences, people who are
differently able, accomplish
some of their goals.
My own son made a birthday card
using artificial intelligence.
He struggles with reducing
things to writing.
There is a lot of potential
there.
We should not deny that, but
there are also some real harms.
This is truly a transformative
technology of our age, and what
needs to transform our our legal
and law institutions.
Geoff: Professor of law and
legal institutions at the
university of Washington, thank
you for being with us.
♪♪