AI Integration and a moral dilemma

Hannah

I can understand your concerns but I'm not sure there's much you can do.

I am going to be involved in a meeting to discuss how AI can be integrated and in all honesty, i have so much bias and moral objection to it. 

Whilst i fully recognise that AI integration can be a game changer in some situations, just because we can, doesn't mean we should ? 

It feels a bit like we are going to do it because every one else is doing it, whereas, for me, the smart thing to do, would be to identify our gaps and see where AI could help solve a genuine business requirement. 

Perhaps that is  something you need to raise at the meeting?  What are the objectives for doing this?

I have heard and read a lot about AI lately, as have we all, i have many concerns, to name a few:

- Sustainability, the water in pulls alone is totally unsustainable

- The land required to build these hideous data centres

But we have huge unsustainable growth of roads, industrial complexes, solar farms, roads, warehousing,  housing developments, the extraction of metals for use in modern technology such as our mobile phones, batteries, circuit boards, 'smart, TVs',  computers causes a huge amount of environmental damage (Mostly in 3rd world countries of course !!). Houses built on flood plains, Coal mines closed down and miners put out of work  so we import coal from elsewhere, We travel the world by plane, car and sea, all big polluters.  We can't (or won't ) be putting the genie back in the bottle soon.

- The security ! AI growing arms and legs all by itself and the worrying thing is there is no human written code to AI programmes, so when things go wrong, no one can 'patch it', you are fully reliant on the AI agents repairing what is damaged 

- The lack of control - we don't fully understand how these systems build themselves, where is the transparency and data ownership ?

- The impact it will have on peoples jobs 

As for jobs, I think that argument comes up all the time.   

The introduction of the tractor pushed down the need for ploughmen, but increased the amount of food we produce and reduced the price and availability;  Vehicles allowed us to move goods around and created jobs in engineering, distribution and so on.  The replacement of sailing ships with motorised vessels put a lot of seaman out of work, but increased the availability of things you and I buy - almost all our electronic goods come from China.  The village and town I live in was once was a thriving port, ships and shipping the biggest employer.   There are no ships any longer and no ship related jobs.  The grave yards are full of 'Master Mariners', my own family included.  Tourism has largely replaced those jobs and the last sailmaker is long dead and no more wooden ships are built here, the last shipwrights have been replaced by welders.. 

I'm sorry if this sounds a bit of lecture but I do have  some empathy & agreement with your concerns but technology, isn't something we can totally stop, given that we humans seem to continually buy into it without much thought of the consequences.     (Later this year I'll be travelling on a train which has no driver or crew - the irony).

Hannah

I can understand your concerns but I'm not sure there's much you can do.

I am going to be involved in a meeting to discuss how AI can be integrated and in all honesty, i have so much bias and moral objection to it. 

Whilst i fully recognise that AI integration can be a game changer in some situations, just because we can, doesn't mean we should ? 

It feels a bit like we are going to do it because every one else is doing it, whereas, for me, the smart thing to do, would be to identify our gaps and see where AI could help solve a genuine business requirement. 

Perhaps that is  something you need to raise at the meeting?  What are the objectives for doing this?

I have heard and read a lot about AI lately, as have we all, i have many concerns, to name a few:

- Sustainability, the water in pulls alone is totally unsustainable

- The land required to build these hideous data centres

But we have huge unsustainable growth of roads, industrial complexes, solar farms, roads, warehousing,  housing developments, the extraction of metals for use in modern technology such as our mobile phones, batteries, circuit boards, 'smart, TVs',  computers causes a huge amount of environmental damage (Mostly in 3rd world countries of course !!). Houses built on flood plains, Coal mines closed down and miners put out of work  so we import coal from elsewhere, We travel the world by plane, car and sea, all big polluters.  We can't (or won't ) be putting the genie back in the bottle soon.

- The security ! AI growing arms and legs all by itself and the worrying thing is there is no human written code to AI programmes, so when things go wrong, no one can 'patch it', you are fully reliant on the AI agents repairing what is damaged 

- The lack of control - we don't fully understand how these systems build themselves, where is the transparency and data ownership ?

- The impact it will have on peoples jobs 

As for jobs, I think that argument comes up all the time.   

The introduction of the tractor pushed down the need for ploughmen, but increased the amount of food we produce and reduced the price and availability;  Vehicles allowed us to move goods around and created jobs in engineering, distribution and so on.  The replacement of sailing ships with motorised vessels put a lot of seaman out of work, but increased the availability of things you and I buy - almost all our electronic goods come from China.  The village and town I live in was once was a thriving port, ships and shipping the biggest employer.   There are no ships any longer and no ship related jobs.  The grave yards are full of 'Master Mariners', my own family included.  Tourism has largely replaced those jobs and the last sailmaker is long dead and no more wooden ships are built here, the last shipwrights have been replaced by welders.. 

I'm sorry if this sounds a bit of lecture but I do have  some empathy & agreement with your concerns but technology, isn't something we can totally stop, given that we humans seem to continually buy into it without much thought of the consequences.     (Later this year I'll be travelling on a train which has no driver or crew - the irony).