Letters to the Editor: ‘There is no rogue AI, only rogue program directors’
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To the editor: Thank you for the column by Michael Hiltzik, who is brilliant at explaining complicated issues (“Can AI bots become conscious? Why Microsoft’s AI boss says that’s the wrong question,” Nov. 3). This one about the fears of artificial intelligence consciousness deals with the fact that AI is a human invention, controlled by humans.
In the mid-1950s, I worked for a UCLA astronomy professor. Our small group tracked the orbits of two minor planets and two moons of Jupiter. UCLA had recently acquired a mainframe computer called SWAC. The postdoc who ran the office coded for the information we needed. At that time, the watchword regarding computers was G.I.G.O.: garbage in, garbage out.
This truth about computers holds for AI as well. Since tech executives direct the programming and use of AI, they are responsible for what comes out of the computers. There is no rogue AI, only rogue program directors. Garbage in, garbage out.
Julie May, Los Angeles
