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Remarks on AI from NZ

Last week I participated in a panel discussion on AI as part of a private event in New Zealand.

The arms race that followed, in which the United States and the USSR spent billions trying to out-do each other in the obliteration of South Pacific atolls, made it seem as if these spectacular explosions were the only thing one could actually do with nuclear science. Not out of malicious intent per se but just from a general belief that everything should have to compete, and that competition within a diverse ecosystem produces a healthier result in the long run than raising a potential superpredator in a hermetically sealed petri dish where its every need is catered to. I first heard that quote twenty years ago from a computer scientist at Stanford who was addressing a room full of colleagues—all highly educated, technically proficient, motivated experts who well understood the import of McLuhan’s warning and who probably thought about it often, as I have done, whenever they subsequently adopted some new labor-saving technology.

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