Good design allows systems to work without anyone knowing how the whole thing works.
AI and humans are labor that can be put to work designing and vetting such systems. The problem with AI isn’t that it builds things we don’t understand. It’s that we do not have much experience with its failure modes, limitations and risks. There are many unknown unknowns.
It’s directly analogous to the problem of hiring, management, outsourcing and contacting. Sure, we know that labor can produce massive, highly reliable systems nobody fully understands. But how do we coordinate labor, AI and human, to successfully produce the systems we actually need? What failure modes and advantages does AI introduce into the mix for specific projects?
That’s where the uncertainty comes from, not the lack of comprehensive knowledge of the systems themselves.
AI and humans are labor that can be put to work designing and vetting such systems. The problem with AI isn’t that it builds things we don’t understand. It’s that we do not have much experience with its failure modes, limitations and risks. There are many unknown unknowns.
It’s directly analogous to the problem of hiring, management, outsourcing and contacting. Sure, we know that labor can produce massive, highly reliable systems nobody fully understands. But how do we coordinate labor, AI and human, to successfully produce the systems we actually need? What failure modes and advantages does AI introduce into the mix for specific projects?
That’s where the uncertainty comes from, not the lack of comprehensive knowledge of the systems themselves.