Nikki Main covers breaking news for Gizmodo. You can follow her coverage here, and email story ideas and tips to nmcaleese@gizmodo.com.
The top story:
It’s likely you’ve become numb to how often you interact with technology. But what if the technology is doing more harm than good? As increasing numbers of companies rely on artificial intelligence to power their tech, we see more cases of dangerous AI dysfunction, like autopilot car crashes or content moderation bots promoting harmful social media posts. These conflicts will start to play out in the legal system in 2023, helping define the role of AI in our society going forward.
What we’re waiting for:
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Unconventional wisdom:
Langdon Winner, the author of the book Autonomous Technology, describes the “chain of reciprocal dependency” —the fact that despite any autonomy disparities between humans and technology, our reliance on it will continue to grow despite experiences detailing the harmful and often irreversible consequences.
Winner says that the implementation of this technology has “repeatedly confounded our vision, our expectations, and our capacity to make intelligent judgments,” meaning our choices and arguments have changed and that the “patterns of perceptive thinking that were entirely reliable in the past now lead us systematically astray.”
In other words: autonomy is clouding our judgment, making us weaker, not stronger.
People to follow:
Companies to watch:
A longshot bet:
Consumers have become so reliant on technology that despite any warnings that may arise, they will continue to use it, spend money on it, and even invest in it, because the outcome couldn’t possibly be bad, and those investing in technological developments will continue to do so, as though nothing has changed.
Source: Gizmodo