Over 150 Mathematicians Warn Governments Not to “Believe the Hype” About AI
“There is currently a strong commercial incentive on the part of the technology industry to overstate the capabilities of their products,” the declaration reads, advising policymakers to “consult with experts, including mathematicians, in forming policy decisions rather than relying on press releases or popular reporting of mathematical results.”
When it comes to AI I believe mathematicians know more about the accuracy of AI than governments do. As the article also points out, there is a trend amongst AI companies, who need to make a profit, to overestimate the abilities of their AI.
AI is NOT ready to decide the fates of citizens, or government policy, or making war, or anything like that.
I have used AI quite a bit over the last few months, mostly to solve server issues, various configurations in YAML, and sometimes research for purchase decisions. It always sounds confident and plausible, until I catch it out guessing (hallucinating). Despite its profuse apologies it still continues to make the same mistake. Luckily I now see quite quickly when I think it is going astray, and when I ask it if it is guess, it says yes I caught it out. In a recent case, it instructed me to change a config label, and then took 2 hours plus trying to solve the problem. When I eventually drove it into a corner, it admitted it made a guess about that label. As soon as I restored the label, my application was working again.
The point is, it is just not ready for real responsibility at all. Those who want to just “believe” it, are going to make serious mistakes. To use AI effectively, you need to tweak its default prompts, you need to be highly cynical about AI, and you need to double-check what it suggests. Most importantly, you also need some general awareness about the topic you are working on. In other words, YOU need to be the contextual awareness for AI.
Governments must not yet think that AI is some magic bullet to solving all productivity or diplomatic problems. It does need some savvy to use AI, and for that you do still need skilled workers. What we do need, is more training about how to use AI effectively, and what guardrails to have in place when using it.
I've seen my own government swallowing the hype from Big Tech many years ago. Some great digital sovereignty projects were abandoned back in the late 2000s because Big Tech convinced government to decide on buying their products instead. It has cost my government billions since then, and worst is, today they own none of what they have paid for.
See
Over 150 Mathematicians Warn Governments Not to "Believe the Hype" About AI
A declaration signed by over 150 mathematics experts from around the world warns governments not to "believe the hype" when it comes to AI.
#
technology #
AI #
government
