Whenever I go into doomsaying mode (a kind of technological Cassandra), there is a memo that comes to make me mansplaining to reveal to me a truth unknown to me, a woman, that is expressed with forceful words in the agora, reproving me, without realizing or realizing, that I have arrogated to myself the right to plant the flip-flop. That truth is that the knife does not kill, the man kills. Who could defend themselves against these words spoken by a man in the use of public reflection, of his strict ownership. Who have believed themselves to be literate to contradict the engineers, banners of tsunami progress, inventors of electric light and the combustion engine.
What the memo usually forgets, as is obvious, is that, if the instrument in question did not have a sharp end, one or two cutting sides, and was not sold in the stores of any neighborhood, town or district, it would not be suitable for kill anyone at any time. Before the memo, who like a good fool does not shut up even under water, tells me that we are not going to ban knives nor are we going to put gates on the countryside, I would like to bring here the following reflection that, without a doubt, will not will change your mind.
The argument of “kill the man, not the instrument” is used recurrently by the National Rifle Association American (along with an extreme interpretation of the Second Amendment) to avoid any type of limitation on the use of firearms. In order to continue making money, they are capable of blaming the country’s mental health problem (on which, by the way, they are not willing to spend a penny) rather than recognizing that the only function of a weapon is to injure or kill . It’s not good for cutting a steak or opening a box after a move. It is only capable of causing 31,059 deaths in the United States so far in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archivea website that counts firearm deaths in real time in that country.
Since in Europe we do put gates on the countryside (that’s how manic we are), the possession and use of firearms is strongly limited because we are aware, precisely, that they are instruments for killing. What’s more, in Spain, according to the Weapons regulations, an individual can only possess or carry knives or knives of less than eleven centimeters and with a single edge; Automatic and double-edged knives are prohibited, and no citizen can “possess knives, machetes and other bladed weapons that are part of weapons duly approved by competent authorities or organizations.”
Thanks to the pinnacle of cultural evolution that is the Law, we prevent many people from dying simply by limiting the availability of tools that have the capacity to kill. No one thinks of limiting the number of people capable of killing as a solution to the problem because we would be left alone. Many of us imagine the massacre that would be a meeting of the community of owners if these prohibitions did not exist and, with them, the limitation of access or acquisition of weapons or knives suitable for slicing the neck of the neighbor who puts a refrigerator chest in the storage room.
Well, the same thing happens with technology. There is single-use, military, and dual-use, civil and military, such as cryptography; that can only be used in healthcare settings, under the prescription and control of a doctor, such as an insulin pump or a pacemaker; or those subject to international prohibitions, such as cloning a human being. When we are able to analyze risks, we are able to limit and manage them through regulation.
And then there is that data, communication and internet technology that anyone uses because they were born, grew and matured, silently, based on dopamine cycles, around instruments to which no danger has been presumed. Who would suspect that there is an existential risk in the evolution of the bakelite telephone or the yeye “Gondola” model. Or who would have frowned upon the evolution of punched cards in personal computers? that allowed man to step on the moon. Nobody. Technology is neutral, cold, dispassionate, and therefore beneficial. Well, yes, the billionaires who interrogate Douglas Rushkoff about how to survive the Navy Seals hired to protect them in their bunkers.
Those who have enriched themselves by making tools available to eight-year-old children that educate them that bukakes They are a normal way of relating to girls; that allow eleven-year-old teenagers to take photos every thirty seconds and share them with billions of people; or those who provide a service gratuitous babysitter for parents hooked on WhatsApp. They are the ones who blame them for misusing apps that, thanks to the democratization of the foundational AI API, turn an innocent photo into a nude photo of a minor from Almendralejo. The same ones, in short, that have released for consumer use a technology that should not have left highly controlled professional environments and that should not be operated by just anyone.
I can hide one candy in the nuclear briefcase and blame my dog for the extinction of humanity for having pressed the button while trying to get her. I could do it, if I were a psychopathic billionaire, but since I’m a house lawyer, what I’ll do is not leave anything lethal within her reach or use her basic impulses, precisely the ones I’ve trained, to blame her for it. Because, dear memo friend, guns kill and AI should not be accessible to teenagers raised by YouPorn.
You can follow EL PAÍS Technology in Facebook and Twitter or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
#Naked #artificial #intelligence