By Mika Lauhde
Quick, think of a scary technology – one with the potential to enslave humankind or destroy the earth.
Did you think of AI?
Few other technologies generate the fear factor of artificial intelligence. Ever since Alan Turing introduced the idea in 1948, people have wondered what would happen if machines outsmarted their creators and took charge of the planet.
Legal protections could avert such a calamity, and the first AI regulations have been published and are awaiting public comment. But some of these draft rules set impossibly high standards. For example, a proposed EU regulation on AI released this year requires that all data sets used for machine learning be “free from error.”
Few data sets are. A recent MIT review of 10 major data sets found an average error rate of 3.4%, which translates into tens of thousands of errors, including mislabeled images, text, and audio.
Tech companies are already expressing concern about the EU regulations. Google was diplomatic, saying the company “is concerned that the opportunity cost of not using AI is not sufficiently reflected in policy debates.”
It’s understandable that legislators are…
