Algorithmic determinism and the limits of artificial intelligence

AI progress is advancing at an ever increasing pace, but can you really trust your AI assistant?

THE GIST: Would you trust Siri to organise your next family trip? How about allowing Siri to cast your ballot in the next election? The more data we feed into our personalisation algorithms, the better the decisions they make on our behalf. Yet the pace of AI progress brings challenges we must confront. Bias in algorithms can amplify our own biases and deepen social divisions. What is more, AI applications use data from our past actions to anticipate our needs in the future. This is problematic, because it tends to reproduce established patterns of behaviour, providing old answers to new questions. This form of algorithmic determinism is dangerous, because it precludes our need for experimentation and exploration, while ignoring the multiplicity of our identity.

Imagine a typical day in 2020: your personal AI assistant wakes you up with a friendly greeting before preparing your favourite breakfast. During your morning workout, they play new songs that perfectly match your taste. For your commute to work, they’ve already pre-selected a few articles based on the duration of your commute and what you’ve read in the past.