AI Offers a Unique Opportunity for Social Progress
But it will only do good if it is held to the highest ethical standards, says Mustafa Suleyman of DeepMind
By Mustafa Suleyman
As a global community, we’ve made stunning strides in recent decades, tackling some of the world’s cruellest tragedies. Consider one: child mortality. Every day 17,000 new lives get to be lived by children who would have died just a quarter-century ago. Peace and innovation have been the driving forces of this spectacular progress.
Yet some of our toughest challenges, like inequality, haven’t improved — they’ve actually become worse. Malnutrition and preventable disease continue to kill millions, straining health-care systems in both rich and poor countries. And the devastating threat of climate change looms, hitting the poorest the hardest.
If we are to reduce this suffering, then humanity will need to come up with bold new solutions. But to have any chance of solving these problems, what is feasible today will not be enough. Instead, we must look at what is currently impossible, and do all we can to overcome the limits of what humanity can accomplish. These limits are real, and they cap our aspirations for change.
