Why the threat from the rampaging AI machine went ignored | Letters
TL;DR
Jonathan Michie on his father’s efforts in the 1970s to map out concerns regarding widespread social coercion driven by automation. Plus a letter from Callum Brown Jill Lepore asks why nobody listened to warnings about the threats posed from the AI revolution (Democracy v the machine, 18 August). As she is a Harvard professor, her piece is understandably US-centric. But in 1972 there was an international gathering of AI researchers and others in Italy to tackle the ethical and social implications of AI.
Nauti's Take
The fact that automation and concentrated power were already being debated in 1972 is a gain: teams setting up governance today do not have to invent it and can build on half a century of groundwork. The limit is the sourcing, because the details about the Serbelloni group come from a single Guardian letter and remain unconfirmed.
The concrete question still pays off for small teams: which decisions may your AI influence, and where does a human keep real intervention power?
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