One of our PhD students, Fanchen Bao, took a deep dive into the new Executive on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence. While the Executive Order may have been inspired by a Tom Cruise movie featuring an AI supervillain, Fanchen explains the real-world need for this Executive Order and how researchers should think about these priorities and guardrails:
I react positively to the latest executive order on the development and use of AI. It is quite an inclusive document that encompasses various aspects of AI and its potential impact on the society as a whole. With regards to smart cities, I am pleased to see that extensive actions are planned for promoting competition, supporting workers, advancing equity and civil rights, and protecting privacy. I think these emphases provide crucial support for the success of the smart city initiative.
The ultimate goal of a smart city is to make life better for EVERYONE living, working, or visiting the city. The majority of the new technology needed to achieve such a goal will be AI-driven, which means the reliability, fairness, and security of AI play a pivotal role in how residents and visitors perceive the change in their relationship with the city.
The requirement on promoting competition, specifically in the semiconductor industry, means that the new technologies powering a smart city can source their computer chips from various providers. The chip shortage during the COVID saga showed us that if we do not want to subject the wellbeing of a smart city to the whim of natural disaster, human error, or geopolitical conflicts, we must not put our computer chips in a single basket.
The emphasis on supporting workers is absolutely essential. Recall the Luddites movement of the 19th century when textile workers smashed machineries as manual work was being replaced by machines. It is important to note that the Luddites did not protest against technology per se, but against the unfair distribution of the profits gleaned from technology. AI has kicked off the current era of replacement of manual work, and it is not farfetched to predict that in a smart city, automation will replace jobs currently held by humans. How do we make sure that those who lose jobs to AI remain competitive in the job market? How do we make sure that the savings brought by AI are fairly distributed within the city, instead of being used to buff the top line of large corporations?
The consequence of not resolving the worker support problem will be dire. It may break the smart city initiative altogether because people will not care about a 10% traffic jam reduction if achieving so costs their jobs. Or, even worse, it may lead to a new era of gentrification, where manual and repetitive work laborers are driven out of the city. They are the sacrifice of the smart city initiative yet they will also be the ones ignored by its benefits.
The executive order also highlights the importance of advancing equity, civil rights, as well as protecting privacy. This is very welcoming because the chase of efficiency may make city officials lose sight of what they are after in a smart city. I don’t know what cities are the smartest at the moment, but I will wager that quite a few of them reside in China. Despite the enormous population, Chinese cities can be marvelously efficient with optimized traffic flow and low crime rate. But at what cost? At the cost of jaywalkers having their pictures and personal info displayed on a giant screen for public shame? At the cost of security cameras covering every inch of the street? At the cost of a local government (local!) having full control over residents’ data so that potential protesters can be stopped from boarding a train because their negative COVID tests mysteriously become invalid? The highlights on equity, civil rights, and privacy in the executive order send a positive signal that a stop sign can be raised before any ambitious attempt to smarten a city seeks a fast track. Efficiency should be sacrificed if it infringes on equity, civil rights, or privacy, however noble the cause may be. To me, this is non-negotiable.
In summary, I welcome the executive order on the development and use of AI, and am cautiously optimistic about its effect on the smart city initiative. Yet, executive orders can be reversed and laws mean nothing without enforcement. Corporations with skin in AI have an army of lobbyists to twist the politicians to their will. So it remains to be seen whether this executive order will amount to something or just for the President to score political points ahead of the election. Nevertheless, we as the facilitators and promoters of the smart city initiative bear the responsibility of doing AI the right way regardless of what the White House says. It is up to us to keep the promise to the city and its community that a smarter city will make their life better.