The Transformational Impact AI Can Have on our Society

Earlier this month the AI Summit took place and for me, I think a lot of the narrative is massively missing the point.

Yes, AI will automate and impact jobs, but that is where governments can help accelerate the transition to new jobs.

Yes, there are problems around bias, hallucinations and energy consumption but these will be resolved - and if the benchmark is humanity then AI is already outperforming us.

Yes, there are concerns in the future about AGI and humanity's Skynet moment, but ACI, Artifical Collective Intelligence exists already (we know we've been building it). The genie is out of the bottle on this, and many of the regulation ideas need to be recognised.

Yes, our adversaries (states and individuals) are already weaponising the power of AI but misguided or naive regulation will slow down our ability to defend ourselves.

But the real concern I have is that the transformational impact AI can have on our society is being lost in headlines and sound bites.

At Whitespace we've been building and deploying intelligent and creative AI Agents that work with humans to enhance and augment them. Intelligent Agents can automate, they can run in parallel and give back that most precious of commodities, time, but they can also help us navigate the complexity of the world, and help us make decisions despite almost limitless choices and huge uncertainty. They can provide the regulatory support to ensure we can safely move faster with better decisions. But more than that they can help with creativity, they can bring diverse thoughts, and ideas from other fields and they can guide us through data and decisions with an experience that is optimised for how each individual thinks.

AI has the power to amplify our humanity not diminish it, it has the power to democratise good decisions and knowledge. It has the power to break down siloes and open our minds to the untapped potential within us and across society.

AI is anything but binary, it is not just 1s and 0s, it is probabilistic, dynamic, non-linear and transformational but only if the whole of society understands the power it can have to transform us into a better version of ourselves. Now is not the time to be timid, unambitious, or cling to teething problems as a crutch to avoid change.

AI has the power to make the world a much better place and we need governments to stop trying to hold the innovators back and put in place the mechanisms now so that no one is left behind.

When there are revolutions there are always winners and losers but if society thinks differently this could be the first time in history when a revolution benefits everyone. We should all be looking at how AI can enhance and amplify our potential, we should all be agents of that change, whether as individuals, businesses charities, governments or society.

Government Press Release - https://www.gov.uk/government/...