THE TAMING OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

THE TAMING OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE The United States Congress is already conducting hearings about how to develop and harness artificial intelligence (AI) towards the goal of using it as a tool for business, science, governance, agriculture and defense, among other productive purposes. Meanwhile, it has not entered the agenda of either of the two houses of our own Congress. I have used the word "taming" as a title of this essay, because that is exactly how I look at AI, that it is like a wild animal that has to be "tamed", otherwise it could go on a rampage that could cause damage or even death to humans. As a wild animal, it also has to be domesticated, otherwise it could just become feral, with no economic value or contribution to society. Microsoft Copilot defines AI as the "ability of digital computers or computer-controlled robots to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings". According to Copilot, among these tasks are reasoning, discovering meaning, generalizing and learning from past experiences. In computer parlance, the latter is defined as "machine learning" (ML). Just to be clear, it is not the robot itself that is intelligent. It is the software program that runs the robot that is intelligent. In other words, an AI program does not need to take on a robotic physical form in order to function. That is the case of Alexa and Siri, two AI programs that could function through any computing device. Right now, the understanding of most people about AI is limited to chatbots like Copilot, ChatGPT and Gemini, but AI is really more than just chatbots. Technically, a chatbot is a also a robot even if it does not have a physical form, but there are many other AI programs that have taken physical forms, like ASIMO, JUSTIN and CHARLI. It is not too late for our Congress to start studying how AI could be used for the good of our country in general, and for the good of our national security in particular, including our food security. In case our Congress issues a call for help, I can mobilize our local AI experts to come in as resource persons, because I know many of them. Just invite them, and they will come. IKE SENERES/6-28-2024