Yuval Harari, internationally renowned social philosopher and bestselling author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humanity, warns that humanity must take care of proper AI control, or large companies will be able to “hack” people, reports cbsnews.com.
According to Harari, the rapid development of AI can form a population of “hacked” people, those about whom corporations know everything and manipulate their will.
At the root of the problem is the proliferation of technology corporations, whose businesses accumulate huge amounts of data about their users.
Harari worries that citizens are increasingly providing information about their personal lives to companies and not caring for their own interests.
“Netflix indicates what to watch, Amazon what to buy,” the writer said in an interview.
“Look, after a couple of decades, such programs will show us what to learn in schools and universities, who to work with, who to marry and who to vote in the elections.”
Harari urges that AI threats be taken seriously, so that strict restrictions are adopted on this issue and that information is not used to manipulate society.
In addition, an array of data cannot be stored in a single repository. According to Harari, this will lead to a dictatorship.
“Certainly, now we are at the point when we need global cooperation. You cannot regulate the explosive power of artificial intelligence on a national level,” says Harari.
“One key rule is that if you get my data, the data should be used to help me and not to manipulate me. Another key rule, that whenever you increase surveillance of individuals you should simultaneously increase surveillance of the corporation and governments and the people at the top. And the third principle is that– never allow all the data to be concentrated in one place. That’s the recipe for a dictatorship.”
