By Tom Still
MADISON, Wis. – Some people developed “railway neurosis” in the 1830s and ‘40s because they believed the human body was not designed to travel at the speed of locomotive trains. The advent of telephones in the late 1800s triggered worries over privacy and the erosion of face-to-face communication; some people refused to touch a phone for fear of electrical shock. Adoption of the modern elevator was slow because people were afraid of free-fall accidents, even after Elisha Otis invented a safety brake demonstrated at the 1854 World’s Fair.
Such is the case with artificial intelligence today, with many people leery of AI for reasons that may yet be proven correct – or which will be navigated in time as its many advantages become more widely known.
Stern warnings about AI were issued a year ago by an international group of AI scientists who were central to its development. Scientists from the United States, China, Britain, Singapore and Canada were among those who concluded “loss of human control or malicious use of these AI systems could lead to catastrophic outcomes for all of humanity.”
These are AI pioneers, yet they believe some AI models may begin to autonomously self-improve and spin out of human command unless safeguards are put in place by nations that are major developers.
The list includes deep fakes, erosion of privacy, loss of jobs now held by real people and predictions that AI will change the very nature of warfare. Might exploding pagers and walkie-talkies be equipped with an AI trigger? The losers in warfare throughout history have often been those who fought with the technology and tactics of the previous war.
Others worry that massive data centers powering AI functions will consume ever-growing amounts of energy and water for cooling. Such centers are being built or planned in Wisconsin communities such as Mount Pleasant, Kenosha County, Beaver Dam, Port Washington and DeForest, according to news reports.
At a minimum, observers have warned, utilities and state regulators must ensure that data center power costs are not passed on to homeowners and other existing users. A balanced energy generation approach for data centers should ultimately include nuclear fission and fusion.
Some AI advantages have emerged:
- Some repetitive and even physically dangerous jobs previously done by humans are being replaced by AI-powered robots, which has allowed human workers to be reassigned. In an age when many employers are having trouble filling jobs, that’s a competitive edge.
- Similarly, efficiency and productivity appear on the rise in workplaces – particularly in manufacturing – that have adopted AI for some purposes.
- Systems powered by AI don’t mind working weekends or the third shift. It is available 24/7.
- Artificial intelligence is changing health care, from better analysis that can drive research results to administrative tasks to freeing up physicians to spend more time with patients. “…AI is changing the trajectory of health care – from automating routine tasks and increasing efficiency to improving diagnoses, accelerating the discovery of more effective treatments, and so much more,” concluded a 2024 report from Harvard University. Specifics cited included helping clinicians better interpret medical imaging results and aiding in the diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases.
- Virtual assistants such as Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant are powered by AI, as are navigation apps and personalized recommendations that can help consumers find products (although they can be annoying.)
- Financial institutions such as banks and credit unions use AI to detect and prevent fraudulent transactions by spotting unusual account patterns.
- Right now, AI is driving stock market activity that would otherwise be sluggish due to other factors. Chicago-based analyst Scott Becker, who spoke at this year’s Wisconsin Entrepreneurs’ Conference, wrote Thursday that Nvidia is up 27% for the year and is “the primary bellwether AI stock due to its dominance in the market for high-performance graphics processing units, which are critical for AI development.”
It’s only human to question the safety and potential economic disruption of inventions that test our ability to absorb the change, but history shows acceptance is widespread once benefits become clear. That may be the case with AI in time.
Still is president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. tstill@wisconsintechnologycouncil.com.