Artificial intelligence may be the most powerful tool humans have.
When applied properly to a problem suited for it, AI allows humans to do amazing things.
But AI isnt a panacea or cure-all.
In fact, when improperly applied, its a dangerous snake oil that should be avoided at all costs.
To that end, I present six types of AI that I believe ethical developers should avoid.
First though, a brief explanation.
And weve also intentionally left knife technologies off of this list.
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Instead, Ive focused on those technologies that distort the very problem theyre purported to solve.
Well begin with the low hanging fruits: criminality and punishment.
Neither humans nor machines are psychic.
[Related:Predictive policing is a bigger scam than psychic detectives]
Predictive policing is racist.
It uses historical data to predict where crime is most likely to occur based on past trends.
That doesnt mean theres more toilet paper at Wal Mart.
AI that attempts to predict criminality is fundamentally flawed because the vast majority of crimes go unnoticed.
This makes the police look good.
But it doesnt actually indicate which individuals in a society are likely to commit a crime.
In fact, at best it just keeps an eye on those thatve already been caught.
At worst, these systems are a criminals best friend.
The more theyre used, the more likely crime will perpetuate in areas where police presence is traditionally low.
See above, psychics do not exist.
This is exactly what happenswhen developers use the wrong data for a problem.
If youre supposed to add 2 + 2, theres no use for an apple in your equation.
No amount of data can actually predict whether a human will commit a crime.
Gender
Heres a fun one.
Dont email me.).
AI cannot determine a persons gender from anything other than that persons explicit description of their gender.
Youll see a theme developing here: because psychics dont exist.
Humans cannot look at other humans and determine their gender.
Can you tell an intersex person by their face?
Can you always tell what gender someone was assigned at birth by looking at their face?
What if theyre Black or Asian?
You cannot tell every persons gender, which means your machine will get some wrong.
Artificial intelligence cannot predict a persons sexuality because, you guessed it: psychics dont exist.
In the year 2020some scientists are still debating whether bisexual men exist.
You cannot build a machine that predicts human sexualitybecause human sexuality is a social construct.
Now imagine they fantasize about sex with women.
A day later they have sex with a man.
Now they fantasize about men.
A day later they have sex with a woman.
Now they fantasize about both.
After a month, they havent had sex again and stop fantasizing.
They never have sex again or feel romantically inclined towards another person.
Are they gay, straight, or bisexual?
Thats not up to you or any robot to decide.
Does thinking about sex account for any part of your sexuality?
Or are you straight until you do some gay stuff?
How much gay stuff does someone have to do before they get to be gay?
If you stop doing gay stuff can you ever be straight again?
There is no conceivable good that can come from Gaydar AI.
Its only use is as a tool for discrimination.
Intelligence
AI cannot determine how intelligent a person is.
Im going to flip the script here because this has nothing to do with being psychic.
When AI attempts to predict human intelligence its performing prestidigitation.
Its doing a magic trick and, like any good illusion, theres no actual substance to it.
Figuring out how smart a person is cant be solved by a few algorithms.
So what do these AI systems do?
For instance, they might determine that an intelligent person doesnt use profanity as often as a non-intelligent person.
In this instance, Dane Cook would be considered more intelligent than George Carlin.
But there are plenty of ways these systems can be used to discriminate.
Potential
Ah yes, human potential.
In the rare cases they arent, its where they seek out a specific, expressed, qualification.
Otherwise, theres no merit to developing AI hiring systems.
Any data theyre trained on iseither biased or useless.
AI cannot determine the best human candidate for a job, because people arent static concepts.
You cant send a human or a machine down to the store to buy a perfect HR fit.
Not because theycouldbe used for evil, but because theycannotbe used for good.
Each of these six AI paradigms are united by subterfuge.
But human level in every single one of these six domains, means our best guess.
