Professor Shannon Vallor testifies at US Senate hearing on 'The Philosophy of AI: Learning from history, shaping our future'
Image credit: Kelly Adkins
On the 8th November 2023, Professor Shannon Vallor testified to the United States’ Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee on the philosophy AI and how we can use historical knowledge and experiences to shape our future.
Director of the Centre for Technomoral Futures, Professor Shannon Vallor, was invited to testify to the US Senate earlier this year as part of a hearing called, “The Philosophy of AI: Learning from history, shaping our future.”
During her testimony, Professor Vallor discussed two dimensions of the link between AI and our capacity for self-governance:
The need to jointly exercise responsible self-governance of the new social, political and economic powers that AI technologies inject into our institutions
The way that AI technologies can undermine our confidence in, and will to exercise, those same human capabilities of self-governance
A few insights from her testimony include:
'As a new source of immense socioeconomic and political power, AI is something we must govern. Why? Because ungoverned, or ungovernable, social and political power is deeply incompatible with democratic principles.’
‘Had AI arrived at a different historical moment, in a period when global confidence and commitment to democratic norms and values was more robust and secure, I do not think any of the risks we see today would be unmanageable or ‘existential’ in nature. The extremity of the danger from AI arises from our own current weakened moral and political condition, which has compromised our collective will to legitimize and exercise appropriate control over this new form of power, or direct it to just and beneficial ends.’
‘Much of the talk about AGI and existential risk is a dangerous distraction from what’s going on right in front of us. It’s not a violent uprising by machines. It’s a slow, quiet human devaluation of the political and cultural currency of our own capacity for collective wisdom and self-governance. That’s the endgame. Our humanity is the stake.’
If you’d like to watch the full recording of the hearing or read Professor Vallor’s testimony, you can access them at the link below.