Hong Kong News

Nonpartisan, Noncommercial, unconstrained.
Tuesday, Dec 10, 2024

How Hong Kong can play a role in preventing AI Armageddon

How Hong Kong can play a role in preventing AI Armageddon

Regulatory oversight of increasingly powerful AI technology is urgently needed, and Hong Kong, with its world-class universities and trusted regulatory infrastructure, can be a global leader.

There has been a significant uptick of late in discussion on the topic of artificial intelligence and the threats it poses. There are several reasons for the heightened discussion, even if the recent headlines have been grabbed by the exhortations of Tesla founder Elon Musk and others to pause training of AI systems more powerful than ChatGPT-4 for at least six months.

With the emergence of the AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT – and alternatives like Jasper and YouChat – concerns have been raised about AI-generated images and the uncanny quality of the deepfakes, such as those of Pope Francis in a white Balenciaga puffer coat and of former US president Donald Trump in handcuffs.

When reality and fiction become indistinguishable in terms of images and sound, then we have a problem. This is because the power of such believable imagery and sound to affect and influence human opinion and behaviour is vast and the implications severe.

How will governments, institutions from banks to universities, and every sector that could be affected stay ahead of the curve in terms of identifying false imagery and documentation? Conversely, how can the public have faith that such capabilities might not also be used for political, financial or malign purposes by these same players?

In the academic domain, discussion is currently focused on ChatGPT and its use or non-use in universities, given that students could employ the technology to generate essays, for example. No consensus has yet emerged; there is a clear need for enforceable regulation across jurisdictions. It seems, though, that we are always playing catch-up with an AI ecosystem that is accelerating.

Perhaps in the future we will only be willing to trust images and sound generated via some uncrackable quantum code coupled with blockchain-like validity protocols, with everything else to be taken with a pinch of salt.

But the impressionable, paranoid, biased, less well educated, opinionated and religious can all be taken in, to various degrees, by AI put to pernicious use. This is not an insignificant fraction of society, as the unfolding disaster of Brexit in the United Kingdom makes only too clear (but not to some).

A still from 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the film, a spacecraft’s computer, which has humanlike intelligence, begins to work against the astronauts.


Of course, in popular culture, the perils and benefits of AI have played out on our screens over decades, in everything from the murderous AI computer HAL in Stanley Kubrick’ 2001 A Space Odyssey to Stephen Spielberg’s ultimately sad film A.I., released in 2001, to the more dystopian Matrix and Terminator franchises.

The potential dangers of uncontrolled AI have been made plain in such films and other media, and so have seeped into the public consciousness, but are the risks of AI Armageddon overblown?

To me, it eventually comes down not to whether I can get an AI app to write this article, but whether true AI – that not only becomes indistinguishable from human intelligence but rapidly surpasses it – is just around the corner. This is where the greatest threats to humanity may arise.

A simple thought experiment illustrates the point. If AI emerges in the near future as self-aware in the truest sense, and thereafter is able to learn and improve at an accelerated rate and can access and control everything connected to the Internet of Things upon which modern life depends, what might this mean? Would AI feel compelled to act for the “eventual greater good”? Could anyone stop it if it did?

A powerful AI assessing the current state of our fragile planet, the collapsing ecosystems and the damage human actions pose to nearly every other living thing might cause such an aware AI to reflect. It could conclude that the planet needs saving from the one organism responsible for what is happening. Perhaps an engineered pandemic would arise with a much higher mortality rate than that of 1Covid1-19.

A key point is that, as things stand, AI-related capabilities are emerging in a somewhat ad hoc way and at a rapidly increasing pace, with no real control or oversight. Some amazing new development occurs, has an immediate impact and when the implications of its capacities are realised, there are then calls to try to regulate it after the fact. This is dangerous as, once the true AI genie is out of the bottle, what could we do?

Of course, the world is increasingly multipolar and disjointed, and such coordinated control, though desirable, might be difficult to achieve in practice. But we should try.

In that vein, Hong Kong has some of the best universities in the world with leadership in fintech and data science, as exemplified by the recently established HKU Musketeers Institute of Data Science at the University of Hong Kong. There is also the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics under the Hong Kong Institute of Science and Innovation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Finally, we also enjoy a trusted and impressive regulatory and compliance infrastructure. So Hong Kong has the potential to emerge as a global centre for regulatory oversight of AI technology. The world needs to move quickly to regulate advancements in AI, and perhaps Hong Kong can help show the way before it is too late.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Hong Kong News
0:00
0:00
Close
It's always the people with the dirty hands pointing their fingers
Paper straws found to contain long-lasting and potentially toxic chemicals - study
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
Blackrock gets half a trillion dollar deal to rebuild Ukraine
Steve Jobs' Son Launches Venture Capital Firm With $200 Million For Cancer Treatments
Google reshuffles Assistant unit, lays off some staffers, to 'supercharge' products with A.I.
End of Viagra? FDA approved a gel against erectile dysfunction
UK sanctions Russians judges over dual British national Kara-Murza's trial
US restricts visa-free travel for Hungarian passport holders because of security concerns
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Political leader from South Africa, Julius Malema, led violent racist chants at a massive rally on Saturday
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
'I am not your servant': IndiGo crew member, passenger get into row over airline meal
Singapore Carries Out First Execution of a Woman in Two Decades Amid Capital Punishment Debate
Spanish Citizenship Granted to Iranian chess player who removed hijab
US Senate Republican Mitch McConnell freezes up, leaves press conference
Speaker McCarthy says the United States House of Representatives is getting ready to impeach Joe Biden.
San Francisco car crash
This camera man is a genius
3D ad in front of Burj Khalifa
Next level gaming
BMW driver…
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Unlike illegal imigrants coming by boats - US Citizens Will Need Visa To Travel To Europe in 2024
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
The politician and the journalist lost control and started fighting on live broadcast.
The future of sports
Unveiling the Black Hole: The Mysterious Fate of EU's Aid to Ukraine
Farewell to a Music Titan: Tony Bennett, Renowned Jazz and Pop Vocalist, Passes Away at 96
Alarming Behavior Among Florida's Sharks Raises Concerns Over Possible Cocaine Exposure
Transgender Exclusion in Miss Italy Stirs Controversy Amidst Changing Global Beauty Pageant Landscape
Joe Biden admitted, in his own words, that he delivered what he promised in exchange for the $10 million bribe he received from the Ukraine Oil Company.
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Global Trend: Using Anti-Fake News Laws as Censorship Tools - A Deep Dive into Tunisia's Scenario
Arresting Putin During South African Visit Would Equate to War Declaration, Asserts President Ramaphosa
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
The Changing Face of Europe: How Mass Migration is Reshaping the Political Landscape
China Urges EU to Clarify Strategic Partnership Amid Trade Tensions
The Last Pour: Anchor Brewing, America's Pioneer Craft Brewer, Closes After 127 Years
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
BBC Anchor Huw Edwards Hospitalized Amid Child Sex Abuse Allegations, Family Confirms
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Distorted Mirror of actual approval ratings: Examining the True Threat to Democracy Beyond the Persona of Putin
40,000 child slaves in Congo are forced to work in cobalt mines so we can drive electric cars.
×