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The AI Debate Is Happening in a Cocoon

Existential risks—or x-risks, as they’re sometimes known in AI circles—evoke blockbuster science-fiction movies and play to many people’s deepest fears. But AI already poses economic and physical threats—ones that disproportionately harm society’s most vulnerable people.

The AI safety summit, and its critics

Amba Kak of the AI Now Institute, one of the few representatives of civil society at last week’s summit, said at the event’s conclusion that “we are at risk of further entrenching the dominance of a handful of private actors over our economy and our social institutions.”

Global leaders commit to pre-deployment AI safety testing

bal leaders commit to pre-deployment AI safety testing AI Now Institute executive director Amba Kak, one of three civil society representatives at the summit table, praised pre-deployment testing commitments, but warned, "We are at risk of further entrenching the dominance of a handful of private actors over our economy and our social institutions."

Will a new regulation on AI help tame the machine?

“We should just be able to say, ‘We don’t want that kind of AI to be used, period, it’s too harmful for the public,’” said West.

Global leaders commit to pre-deployment AI safety testing

AI Now Institute executive director Amba Kak, one of three civil society representatives at the summit table, praised pre-deployment testing commitments, but warned, "We are at risk of further entrenching the dominance of a handful of private actors over our economy and our social institutions."

U.K.’s AI Safety Summit Ends With Limited, but Meaningful, Progress

“There has been a complete industry capture of this conversation, and in many ways this summit reflects that,” says Amba Kak, the executive director of the AI Now Institute, a research group.

U.K.’s AI Safety Summit Ends With Limited, but Meaningful, Progress

“There has been a complete industry capture of this conversation, and in many ways this summit reflects that,” says Amba Kak, the executive director of the AI Now Institute, a research group. “The context to all of this is that we’re seeing a further concentration of power in the tech industry and, within that, a handful of actors. And if we let industry set the tone on AI policy, it’s not enough to say we want regulation—because we’re going to see regulation that further entrenches industry interests.”

AI Now Joins Civil Society Groups In Statement Calling For Regulation To Protect the Public

Biden signs executive order to oversee and invest in AI

“It’s great to see the White House set the tone on the issues that matter most to the public: labor, civil rights, protecting privacy, promoting competition,” Myers West said by text message. “This underscores you can’t deal with the future risks of AI without adequately dealing with the present.” 

Transcript: House Hearing on Safeguarding Data and Innovation

Amba Kak, executive director at AI Now Institute, advised the Committee to stay the course in prioritizing data privacy, consumer protection, and competition frameworks to govern and regulate AI effectively.

US House subcommittee dives into privacy, AI legislative recommendations

“We’re seeing new privacy threats emerge from AI systems; we talked about the future threats and how we don’t know where AI is going to go, but we absolutely do know what harms they’re already causing,” Kak said. “Unless we have rules of the road, we’re going to end up in a situation where this kind of state of play against consumers is entrenched.”

AI Now Managing Director Sarah Myers West Gives Remarks Before Heads of Agency, International Competition Network

Congress scrambles to craft AI privacy rules as industry races ahead

Kak said there is a chance now for lawmakers and regulators to take action before AI systems are “already entrenched in a particular trajectory.”

How AI reduces the world to sterotypes

“Essentially what this is doing is flattening descriptions of, say, ‘an Indian person’ or ‘a Nigerian house’ into particular stereotypes which could be viewed in a negative light,” Amba Kak, executive director of the AI Now Institute, a U.S.-based policy research organization, told Rest of World. Even stereotypes that are not inherently negative, she said, are still stereotypes: They reflect a particular value judgment, and a winnowing of diversity.

AI and Industrial Policy: Challenging the Current Paradigm

Do We Need an FDA for AI?: A Rapid Expert Deliberation

How Big Tech is co-opting the rising stars of artificial intelligence

“To build AI at any kind of meaningful scale, any developer is going to have core dependencies on resources that are largely concentrated in only a few firms,” said Sarah Myers West, managing director at the AI Now Institute, which researches the effects of AI on society. “There really isn’t a path out of it.”

Trust-busters come for AI’s building blocks

“Right now, compute seems like a more concrete input to regulate,” said Vipra, who co-authored a “Computational Power and AI” report released last week by the AI Now Institute, a New York-based think tank focused on the technology’s social implications.