ASU professor Retha Hill says, “It is our job as journalists to educate people about the opportunities and dangers of AI.” We need to do a better job of this.
AI is already changing our lives. We need to understand how
ASU professor Retha Hill explains the impact of artificial intelligence and the personal information and data we share online.
Republic of Arizona
Can average intelligence keep up with artificial intelligence?
That’s the question journalists should be asking on behalf of the American public about a growing technology that has become essential to everything from national defense to figuring out a song title by humming a few bars into your phone.
Retha Hill, a professor of digital journalism at Arizona State University, teaches on the subject and fears we are all missing the point.
“It’s our job (as journalists) to educate people about the opportunities and dangers of AI,” Hill recently told about 60 people at CultureHUB near downtown Phoenix.
AI is not perfect, but it won’t kill us all
Hill was honored this summer by the local chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists for her induction into the larger organization’s Hall of Fame, recognizing her groundbreaking career, which includes serving as founding editor of Washington Post Newsweek Interactive and vice president of content for BET Interactive.
“The way we report on it is either like, ‘Oh, here’s this new thing, you can run your stove with AI!’ Or like, ‘The robots are going to take over and kill us all.’ I think there’s a middle ground that we need to pay attention to.”
To me, the middle ground is complicated and worrying. And I don’t think many people are interested in a serious discussion about where the limits of AI are or where they should be.
For example, we all know that students use AI to either work more efficiently on homework or have bots write entire essays. Research is OK. But digital plagiarism is not. That’s easy.
But what about the impact on national defense?
If China, Russia, Iran and North Korea develop AI capabilities that surpass ours in the United States, does that leave us vulnerable to cyberattacks on everything from financial data to missile guidance technology?
And what safety precautions are there in the event of a large-scale digital power outage? Personally, I doubt that I could find my way home from the supermarket without the AI in navigation apps.
A compromise on the AI issue raises difficult questions
What access should the general public have to AI?
We have seen what happens when poor and minority communities are excluded from education and infrastructure development, creating a widening gap that turns problematic inequality into insurmountable generational differences.
If this happens with technology, we will have an underclass living in a digital dark age, right next to a thriving tech renaissance.
If we don’t get AI under control: We will be crushed by it
But if AI can be weaponized—and it absolutely can—who’s to say the technology won’t be abused, like the flood of military-grade weapons used in mass shootings? If you believe there are too many guns in the hands of citizens, doesn’t it make sense that your stance would apply to a potentially dangerous technology?
And what about the economy? Certainly AI can create jobs. People who can use and develop AI software can accelerate their careers in any field where it is used. But will it destroy more jobs than it creates?
Think about how manufacturing technology destroyed working class jobs in the 1980s and 1990s. The middle class never recovered. Will it get worse in the near future?
We need a Ralph Nader to make AI safer
“We need to educate people about what it really is,” Hill said. “It’s not ‘I, Robot’ yet, where it’s going to feed us, take care of us and raise our children. We just need to tell people the truth so they don’t get to that point. …
AI “is a tool, just like a pencil; it’s a tool, just like a fork. And yes, you can hurt people with a pencil; you can hurt people with a fork. But we need to use it for the benefit of humanity and not just sit back and say, ‘It’s only going to cause harm.'”
Hill says now is the time for a new Ralph Nader. Nader was the author of “Unsafe at Any Speed,” in which he called on the automobile industry to make its vehicles safer in 1965.
“It’s taken way too long,” Hill said of advances like airbags and anti-lock brakes, “but it’s gotten safer. Let’s not get stuck on that timeline. Let’s speed things up a little bit.”
This is the only way we can ensure that average intelligence can keep up with artificial intelligence.
Reach Moore at [email protected] or 602-444-2236. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @SayingMoore.
