An ancient legend tells that Jehuda Löw, a rabbi who lived in Prague at the end of the sixteenth century, was not only a wise and wise man, philosopher and mathematician as well as a profound connoisseur of the Law and the Talmud: his esoteric knowledge was in fact so profound that , if necessary, Rabbi Löw was able to build a golem, a being made of clay and with little intelligence – the one necessary to understand the orders of its creator – but of such tremendous strength as to discourage any enemy from harming the people of the Jewish quarter. The golem, the perfect servant, could be used to defend the community from external attacks, but also to perform much more mundane, peaceful and daily tasks. In order for the golem to be meek and reliable, the rabbi had to remember to insert a wooden tablet with “the word of God” written on his mouth, and he must not lose sight of the creature’s worst flaw, namely that, if it was not neutralized in time, it would continue to grow without limits, until it became so big and strong that it escaped any order and was no longer governable. Master Löw, therefore, had to work hard when, forgetting to insert the usual tablet in the mouth of the clay man, he found himself facing the consequences of a golem not instructed to do good, and exponentially more powerful, hour after hour. .
The story of Rabbi Löw and the evil golem (which ends well: with a stratagem, the rabbi finally succeeded in rendering it harmless) is only a variant of the old myth – we should perhaps say: of the unspeakable desire – of the man who creates man. The myth is ancient, but only a few decades ago the advent of robotics and the first studies on the possibility that it was really possible to create “artificial” intelligence began to bring it to a much more concrete level: in recent years, then, the the transition from fantasy to reality seemed to take place more and more rapidly.
It would seem that AI – we too are getting used to shortening it the name according to the English acronym, so often by now we mention it – in less than ten years it has jumped, from some distant laboratory and old science fiction pages, directly into our smartphones. In our pockets today, we carry a technology that, until recently, was rarely even nominated outside of electronic engineering departments.
Although technological progress, at least since the time of Gutenberg if we limit ourselves to the modern age, it has often brought with it the fear of a destructive force of established ways and lifestyles, no innovation seems to have aroused fears as deep as the advent of machines capable of to think (we will see later what it means to “think”) at least from the time of the first mechanical looms, which profoundly changed society and undermined the very concept of “usefulness” of people. The challenge today is even worse, since it is not only muscles and arms that are threatened anymore, but also those intellectual and creative abilities that we believed could never escape human control.
We are faced today with machines or perhaps, more correctly, systems that are very different from those Isaac Asimov had imagined could be kept at bay by means of the three famous laws of robotics. It is from this point that this book starts, which pays homage to the author of Me, robot but that already in the first pages warns us of the enthusiasm and optimistic confidence that inspired so many of Asimov’s works: innovation, sometimes, can be a force that is not necessarily a positive one; not evil, perhaps, but certainly uncritical, triggered by ourselves and capable, however, of turning against ourselves, who tend to forget the true nature of what we have created.
Frank Pasquale, expert on the relationship between technology and law, working for years on the profound information asymmetries that characterize the era of algorithms. Pasquale, who in recent years has carved out – with merit – a role as a true precursor of the subject, draws inspiration, in his most recent essay, The new laws of robotics, from a simple observation: the ability of a machine or any automation system to show human capabilities should not be confused with the actual possession of those capabilities. The key word is simulation, a compass-word that, following Pasquale’s reasoning, must guide us in articulating that “defense of human skills” which, according to the American scholar, represents the heart of the fundamental mission of our species – to maintain the innovation firmly on our side. We can, according to the author, avoid the “worst consequences of the artificial intelligence revolution and at the same time exploit its potential.”
We are then perhaps in the same position as Jehuda Löw, able to build powerful beings at our service, but always running the risk that our distraction, omitting to insert the wooden tablet in the golem’s mouth or, out of metaphor, allowing AI to develop in a context of laws and policies weak, cause them to escape our control, becoming a threat to ourselves?
The “theorist of everything” Stephen Hawking and the creator of SpaceX and Tesla, Elon Musk, they have been, among many, perhaps the most notable advocates of the urgent need to regulate AI to prevent humanity from paying too high a price. And it is precisely on the urgency and the nature of this regulation that the profound reflection of Frank Pasquale is built, which recalls how the laws of Asimov (one: a robot cannot harm a human being nor allow that, due to a failure to intervene, a human being receives harm; two: a robot must obey the orders given by human beings, as long as they do not conflict with the first law; three: a robot must protect its existence as long as it does not conflict with the first or the second law), are no longer enough.
Today humanity faces much more insidious risks of those imagined by the philosopher and scientist of Soviet origin. Pasquale’s laws are the guidelines along which to organize our defense: AI must be complementary to human competence, become an intelligence increased more than artificial, a tool alongside professionals and workers and not a substitute for them; we must not allow anyone, including big tech, to counterfeit humanity to give AI systems human voices and features, to instruct them to simulate emotions and behaviors of men and women; it is necessary to fight the arms race that new technologies risk triggering; finally, transparency must be an indispensable requirement of intelligent systems, which must bear the names of those who created and controls them.
The new laws of robotics it is a book that could very well be used by lawmakers to write the laws and regulations that will govern the development of AI in the coming years, indeed, it is desirable to be read and discussed extensively. The scope of work and the defense of human competence, although extremely important and vast, is nevertheless even limited when compared to the real extent of the challenge that according to Frank Pasquale we are playing: according to him in fact – and it is difficult to blame him – to limit the competence in the context of professions is as misleading as it is dangerous. Human values are the true competence to be preserved: and thus, in the era of exponential technology, we conclude that at the heart of true development is the transmission of those knowledge that has always made human beings what we are. But the regulation, the laws, the learning of disciplines and subjects unnecessary or maybe even humanities, all this talk of ethics, in short – doesn’t it risk holding back innovation? Maybe: but it all depends on the meaning and value we give to the word innovation. Does pursuing technological development and economic growth without limits and regardless of the consequences really resemble a road that climbs? Remembering that you are part of a system – a society, a community, an ecosystem … – which it is also our responsibility to take care of, sometimes even before an individual interest, is it really a sign of degrowth?
A game is being played today on the field of technological development of crucial importance to mankind, and we are lucky enough to be able to play it. We show that we are up to it.
May 29, 2021 (change May 29, 2021 | 20:45)
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