🚫 A critique of tech-criticism (1/2)

PLUS: The audio version of “How can we govern speech fairly on anti-democratic platforms?"

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Have you noticed that the public discourse on “AI” swings like a pendulum from peak optimism to peak fear? Yah, me too. Oddly, though, both ends converge to hype the technology. Those propagating fear often do so in a way that science and technology studies scholar Lee Vinsel calls “criti-hype,” or critiques that are “parasitic upon and even inflates hype.” As Vinsel writes, these critics, “invert boosters’ messages — they retain the picture of extraordinary change but focus instead on negative problems and risks.”

Take the example of the letter published by The Future of Life Institute, calling for a 6-month moratorium on AI systems more powerful than GTP-4. The letter describes a race to develop “ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control.” That’s criti-hype — the letter is wrapped in the language of pushback and concern, all the while likening AI to “powerful digital minds.” As the DAIR Institute rightly argued, this language “not only lures people into uncritically trusting the outputs of systems like ChatGPT, but also misattributes agency. Accountability properly lies not with the artifacts but with their builders.”

Or take the example of a recent hyperbolic New York Times op-ed, where Yuval Harari, Tristan Harris, and Aza Raskin warned that, “A.I.’s new mastery of language means it can now hack and manipulate the operating system of civilization.” They went on to contend that

“We have summoned an alien intelligence. We don’t know much about it, except that it is extremely powerful and offers us bedazzling gifts but could also hack the foundations of our civilization”

The authors concluded by saying that we must “learn to master A.I. before it masters us.” If that’s not hype masquerading as critique and concern, I don’t know what is.

Does this all feel a li’l familiar? That’s because we’ve been here before.