China and the U.S. are increasingly at loggerheads over the technological ambitions of the two superpowers, whether in semiconductors or artificial intelligence, as it is impossible to separate the two.
By Jacques-Aurélien Marcireau, Co-Head of Equities, Tech Expert at Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management
The strong link between technology and power must not be overlooked when we consider ethics and, more directly, the regulation of artificial intelligence.
We cannot operate in a vacuum, without taking account of the economic and geopolitical stakes.
Striking a Balance in a Hurry
The impact of any new technology on society is primarily a function of the intention of those who own and control it. This is why it’s imperative to be vigilant about the potential pitfalls of artificial intelligence, particularly in the area of discrimination, infringement of certain fundamental freedoms and free will.
It seems essential to us to consider what the exploitation of data via the new techniques known as machine learning (sometimes hastily called artificial intelligence) can bring to our societies, in the fields of healthcare or the fight against global warming.
The research paper entitled «Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning», co-authored by Google, DeepMind, Microsoft and a dozen of the world’s leading universities – unfortunately, France is conspicuous by its absence, and the eurozone is poorly represented, with the exception of one German university – reviews a number of favorable applications.
Of these, smart meters are only a small part of the picture. On the healthcare front, in the 1950s, the systematic analysis of data on tens of thousands of newborns in the U.K. – and replicated by other developed countries – and their monitoring in the decades after birth led to major advances in reducing infant mortality and improving public health policies. It was a kind of prehistory of analysis, given the meager resources compared to those we have today.
Analysis of mass data and exploitation of the latest algorithmic advances are making significant contributions to the improvement of diagnostics, to the advent of personalized, predictive medicine and to advances in epigenetics. None of this can be done without a proactive policy of decompartmentalizing data. This is a key issue on which the apprehensions to be overcome are considerable.
A Path to be Traced
The path is far from being marked out. We believe that a proactive, committed policy and confidence in our model of society – particularly democracy – must be used as levers to effectively mobilize these new technologies, to address the major challenges of tomorrow, to maintain counter-power relations between major powers and thus discuss a possible de-escalation on equal terms.
Leaving our future and that of future generations to be decided by others is as irresponsible as developing these technologies for a malicious purpose. That is why we believe that the responsibility for finding the right balance while moving forward at full speed rests with us.
