{"id":380122,"date":"2025-12-30T09:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T09:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/380122\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T09:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T09:30:08","slug":"we-must-take-control-of-ai-now-before-its-too-late-artificial-intelligence-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/380122\/","title":{"rendered":"We must take control of AI now, before it\u2019s too late | Artificial intelligence (AI)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen the AI bubble bursts, humans will finally have their chance to take back control\u201d<\/a>, says the headline on Rafael Behr\u2019s article (23 December). I think it\u2019s more likely that when the AI bubble bursts, the creators of the crisis, along with other wealthy economic actors, will be in the rooms with the politicians telling them how to \u201crescue\u201d us all by transferring wealth in some way from average citizens to the already extremely wealthy. Just like they did during the financial crisis of 2008.<\/p>\n

We need to be ready with alternative plans. For example, world governments could coordinate to buy, for suitably low prices, majority shares in any crashing tech company that actually produces something useful, ensuring that those shares come with full voting rights.<\/p>\n

Governments could then, acting as majority shareholders, instruct these monopolies to divide themselves back into national companies, paying local rates of taxation in one single country for all their activities and obeying all local content and copyright laws.<\/p>\n

Governments could spend money on infrastructure and wages in any area of these companies that is actually useful and sell the shares for a profit once they are making money again.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just one idea. Another might be that we just shut them all down and conserve our power and water for human beings, and close down or refuse to build the datacentres. We should be generating lots of ideas so that, when the time comes, nobody can\u00a0say \u201cthere is no alternative\u201d to the plans that will be proposed behind closed doors by the super-rich and then presented to the rest of us as a fait accompli.<\/p>\n

Anyone with thoughts on this matter needs to make it clear, as a matter of urgency, that there are plenty of possible plans that don\u2019t just transfer more wealth\u00a0to\u00a0the\u00a0super-rich.
Anja Cradden
Edinburgh<\/p>\n

Rafael Behr is right to be concerned about the rapid development of AI, but he seems to be suggesting that we all just wait until the bubble bursts before taking any action to control it. Apart from the potentially catastrophic impact on jobs, the sort of issues raised by an article you published earlier this month (\u2018It\u2019s going much too fast\u2019: the inside story of the race to create the ultimate AI, 1 December<\/a>) mean that we can\u2019t assume we\u2019ll get the chance.<\/p>\n

In the foreseeable future, AI will certainly be able to sabotage attempts to close down or redirect it, and by then it will be too late. Insiders are already worrying that AI could herald the end of the road for humanity, and we must begin the fight to control it now, before it begins to control us.
Mike Scott
Nottingham<\/p>\n

Reading Rafael Behr\u2019s piece on AI reminded me of a short story by the American author Fredric Brown. Scientists build a supercomputer and ask it the final question: \u201cIs there a God? The computer cogitates and answers: \u201cThere is now.\u201d Prescient science fiction or what?
Gerry Rees
Worcester<\/p>\n

Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please email<\/a> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhen the AI bubble bursts, humans will finally have their chance to take back control\u201d, says the headline…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-380122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}