AI's ability to learn poses challenge to regulators, companies: 'A little bit scary'

Artificial Intelligence poses both risks and rewards, but developers should be weary of technologies that could threaten "scary" outcomes, AI technologist says. The capacity of artificial intelligence systems to learn things even when they aren't explicitly taught those things will pose a significant challenge both to the companies creating and marketing these tools, and federal regulators tasked with protecting consumers who use them, a member of the Federal Trade Commission predicted. "Personally, and I say this with respect, I do not see the existential threats to our society that others do," FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya said in recent speech made available this week. "Yet when you combine these statements with the unpredictability and inexplicability of these models, the sum total is something that we as consumer protection authorities have never reckoned with." Bedoya was speaking to the International Association of Privacy Professionals about the tendency of generative AI systems to pick up knowledge and intuition about subjects even when programmers aren't focusing on those topics.