While fears of an artificial intelligence takeover are difficult to quantify, technological complacency carries political and social risks. As the world considers AI guardrails, the role of smaller countries can’t be overlooked.
Joseph Dana is the former senior editor of Exponential View, a weekly newsletter about technology and its impact on society. He was also the editor-in-chief of emerge85, a lab exploring change in emerging markets and its global impact. Twitter @ibnezra
Introduction
Seemingly out of nowhere, artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming our lives, or at least that’s what we’ve been told. The exponential rise of AI language and image models such as ChatGPT and DALL·E 2 from OpenAI[1] is disrupting our relationship with the internet and how we navigate the world online. This has led some analysts to warn about job redundancies and an intellectual revolution.[2]
Sudden change and panic often go hand in hand. The past several months have been full of near-hysterical warnings that humanity is about to be radically transformed by AI technology. As one AI researcher wrote in Time magazine: “If somebody builds a too-powerful AI, under present conditions, I expect that every single member of the human species and all biological life on Earth dies shortly thereafter.”[3]
But while new AI systems open realms of new possibilities, they aren’t anywhere close to achieving their own consciousness or destroying biological life on Earth. Rather than sounding unnecessary alarm bells, it’s helpful to consider how we reached this stage of AI prowess and what steps must be taken to ensure AI’s fair and productive use in the future. The challenges we face with AI are new dimensions of ongoing challenges in modern technology.
AI and Data
Data collection is the lifeblood of any AI system, and how companies collect data reveals truths about how technology affects society.
One of the major misconceptions about the rise of AI chatbots is that they developed spontaneously. These programs evolved in lockstep with rising data inputs from people worldwide using online platforms. Google collects billions of data points from users through its products and searches, a vast trove of data that’s fed into AI systems to make them faster and smarter.[4] Some of this collection is controversial. Facebook, for instance, has agreed to a $725 million class action settlement over alleged misuse of customer data.[5] And yet, in many cases, AI is powered by the information we provide across the internet, albeit without the explicit knowledge that it might end up in an AI language model. For example, The Washington Post recently found that ChatGPT relies heavily on websites like Scribd and Wikipedia to gather information and “sound smart”.[6]
That doesn’t mean AI is all knowing. Quite the contrary. Ted Chiang, the famed science fiction writer and technology thinker, succinctly explained how ChapGPT works in a recent piece in The New Yorker. “Think of ChatGPT as a blurry jpeg of all the text on the Web,” Chiang wrote. “It retains much of the information on the Web, in the same way that a jpeg retains much of the information of a higher-resolution image, but, if you’re looking for an exact sequence of bits, you won’t find it; all you will ever get is an approximation.”[7]
Chiang’s description throws cold water on paranoid views of AI. The technology is developing rapidly, but it won’t fundamentally transform how we live, work, and think in the short term. Instead, we find ourselves in an unusual moment as a global society. We’re living on the cusp of a fundamentally new technological revolution that will change our future, and one that requires thinking outside the box and designing guardrails to ensure the technology’s benefits are equitable.
A New Era of Colonialism
One crucial area often overshadowed in the AI debate is how the systems have been deployed to perpetuate an old form of colonialism. As MIT Tech Review’s Karen Hao explained in a 2022 series on AI colonialism, “The AI industry does not seek to capture land as the conquistadors of the Caribbean and Latin America did, but the same desire for profit drives it to expand its reach. The more users a company can acquire for its products, the more subjects it can have for its algorithms, and the more resources – data – it can harvest from their activities, their movements, and even their bodies.”[8]
Geopolitics plays a quiet but significant role in developing AI systems and technology. The race to weaponize AI between superpowers such as the United States and China has a trickle-down effect on the technology itself. While China’s AI development takes place firmly within its borders and among its sizable domestic population, Western AI development depends on data collected worldwide.[9]
Given our interconnected world, outsized Western influence in AI research and innovation reveals unsettling neo-colonial fault lines. Consider recent moves by firms like Google. As they look to collect more data, they’re turning their sights on developing countries from India to South Africa.[10] But because emerging markets typically lack the necessary infrastructure and resources to create homegrown technology, foreign companies can effectively take over the tech sectors wherever they set up shop.
This model looks like a repeat of the old colonial trade patterns, where developing nations would export raw materials only to import goods manufactured with those very materials. The Chinese don’t need to replicate this model, given the closed nature of their technology ecosystem. Still, even Beijing has spread its data collection[11] wings through technology partnerships in emerging markets.[12]
Nor is the trend limited to AI research. As social media platforms such as Facebook look for growth potential, they are investing in emerging markets in myriad ways, including with schemes to provide free internet access and smartphones as long as users are hooked into their network and sharing their data.[13]
The Regulatory Reckoning
The need for comprehensive AI legal frameworks is clear. Just ask leading researchers. “When it comes to very powerful technologies – and obviously AI is going to be one of the most powerful ever – we need to be careful,” DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis told Time recently. “Not everybody is thinking about those things. It’s like experimentalists, many of whom don’t realize they’re holding dangerous material.”[14]
When you add that scientists and researchers are struggling to understand how their AI models are developing, the situation becomes a matter of urgency. Scientists from MIT, Stanford University, and Google have noticed an alarming jump in AI models that don’t need to be fully retrained on new data sets.[15] This is known as “in-context learning,” and it marks a significant development in the technology. The only problem is that researchers don’t fully understand why these AI systems can learn new tasks with only a handful of examples.
Such rapid and alarming developments have led many thinkers to call for a more serious discussion about how AI can change and affect society. Writing in the journal Nature, a handful of leading researchers, thinkers, academics, psychologists, and scientists argued that science “now faces a reckoning induced by AI technology infringing on its most dearly held values, practices, and standards.” [16]
This reckoning is seen in how AI is revolutionizing research and publishing practices, creating both opportunities and concerns. The writers note that AI “might accelerate the innovation process, shorten time-to-publication and, by helping people to write fluently, make science more equitable and increase the diversity of scientific perspectives. However, it could also degrade the quality and transparency of research and fundamentally alter our autonomy as human researchers.”
Additionally, AI tools produce text that might be convincing but is also often wrong. “Their use can distort scientific facts and spread misinformation,” the researchers concluded.
The role of AI in the production of scientific research might seem narrow, but the example can be extrapolated for society at large. In essence, AI systems are full of promise – and peril. The path they take depends on clear guardrails that will be created out of sensible regulations. Larger countries have so far failed to regulate this technology and allowed it to develop independently.
But how do we regulate such a large industry that is rapidly changing? That’s where smaller countries come in.
A Small-State Solution
Establishing a balanced approach to the challenges that AI represents will require small countries with robust technology sectors to intervene in the form of sensible regulations. Why small countries? Although new regulation is desperately needed, finding the right laws is a delicate balancing act that larger countries have so far failed to manage. The AI sector has been allowed to develop in the West with few significant regulatory hurdles; lawmakers have only begun regulating data collection by tech companies with legislation like the European Union’s GDPR.[17] As AI systems become more advanced, regulatory guardrails will be essential, and smaller states are best positioned to construct them.
The EU has recently taken up the issue of AI regulation and far-reaching legislation could be on the cards.[18] Yet, regulating technology is always a tricky endeavor. Ensuring that safety nets are in place to protect society while not stifling innovation is an art that larger economies struggle to master. It’s abundantly clear that sensible AI regulations can change as technology develops. Such change is born out of nimble legislative environments run by lawmakers with a firm understanding of the technology.
Small countries such as Estonia and the United Arab Emirates have a unique ability to lead in this space. Not only do these countries have nimble legislative environments, but they are fully fledged knowledge economies. In the case of Estonia and the other Baltic countries, technology is woven into the fabric of society and governance. The UAE, on the other hand, is home to more than 200 nationalities. Since cultural nuance and sensitivities are vital to equitable AI systems, the UAE is an ideal laboratory for AI regulation.
Toward a New Chapter
As world superpowers compete for more powerful AI systems, the need for a non-aligned technology movement between small states is critical for the equitable development of the industry. This is especially important given global growth patterns. The next great technological innovation will likely come from the emerging world, given that more than 85 percent of the global population lives outside the West. Never has the so-called non-West been better equipped with the tools to build up their societies.
The rise of small states in technology is about the equitable development of the industry and, ultimately, the innovation race. The power of countries like the US and China is not in question, and they will continue to lead. But the ability for developing countries to partner without the burden of colonial baggage will help facilitate a climate where the next great innovation will occur. Small states can lead the ch
[1] https://openai.com/
[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/chatgpt-heralds-an-intellectual-revolution-enlightenment-artificial-intelligence-homo-technicus-technology-cognition-morality-philosophy-774331c6
[3] https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-not-enough/
[4] https://www.statista.com/topics/1001/google/#topicOverview
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/business/facebook-settlement-apply.html
[6] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/ai-chatbot-learning/
[7] https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/chatgpt-is-a-blurry-jpeg-of-the-web
[8] https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/19/1049592/artificial-intelligence-colonialism/
[9] https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-artificial-intelligence-is-transforming-the-world/
[10] https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/public-policy/digital-fast-lane-emerging-economies/
[11] https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/how-to-tackle-the-data-collection-behind-chinas-ai-ambitions/
[12] https://www.scmp.com/economy/article/3196371/why-china-gaining-edge-emerging-markets-while-west-tries-impose-hegemony-shoestring
[13] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/01/facebook-free-basics-internet-africa-mark-zuckerberg
[14] https://time.com/6246119/demis-hassabis-deepmind-interview/
[15] https://www.vice.com/en/article/4axjnm/scientists-made-discovery-about-how-ai-actually-works
[16] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00288-7
[17] https://gdpr.eu/what-is-gdpr/
[18] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/03/the-european-union-s-ai-act-explained/
