Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

by Brad Smith

tenet

The man who ignited the political firestorm was a member of Parliament himself. His name was John Wilkes. John Wilkes was arguably the most dramatic—and radical—politician of his time. In the 1760s, he challenged not only the Prime Minister but also the King with words

“house is his castle, and is not liable to be searched, nor his papers pried into, by the malignant curiosity of the King’s messengers.”

People’s eyes were opened to the scope of government surveillance. Stronger encryption had become the new norm. Tech companies were suing their own government. And competitors were working together in new ways.

He had changed the world; and across the tech sector, he had changed us as well.

It increasingly has become the place where people organize themselves and define what happens in the real world.

amicus,

piqued

belied

It also guarantees that a government can apply its own laws and ensure that its search warrants can reach all the country’s data.

minutiae

rancor

balked.

One thing we had learned long ago was that it was more fun to fight a battle but typically more rewarding to strike a deal.

panacea.

Congressional staff weren’t any more accustomed than we were to publicly discussing these types of attacks. Especially if we started with the IT staff for an organization, the decision making would spin in circles for months, which effectively meant that no one would say anything at all. But if the question was called at the top of an organization, it wasn’t all that difficult for people to know what they wanted to say.

sobering

Working through a free internet browser plug-in, NewsGuard displays green or red icons next to links on search engines and social media feeds, including Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Bing, indicating whether a site is “trying to get it right or instead has a hidden agenda or knowingly publishes falsehoods or propaganda.”

That outcome has a lesson for our own generation. Foreign interference with democratic processes can be met successfully only if the stakeholders in a republic set aside enough of their differences to work together to respond effectively.

vitriol

Gilded

Symantec,

armistice

It would be a mistake to underestimate a small country with a good idea and determined leadership.

Facebook users learned that their personal data had been harvested by the political consulting firm to build a database targeting US voters with advertisements designed to support Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

If it’s possible to shift from fiber-optic cables to wireless technology for broadband, we can spread broadband coverage farther and faster and at a lower cost—not just in the United States, but around the world.

All these challenges require action. As I sometimes say at Microsoft when we start a new project, first prize is to do something big. Second prize is to do something. Success rarely comes to people who do nothing.

“AI is a computer system that can learn from experience by discerning patterns in data fed to it and thereby make decisions.”

the essence of these definitions of AI—is based on two fundamental technological capabilities: human perception and human cognition.

When people

a hundred years from now look back at the history of the twenty-first century, they’ll likely conclude that the decade from 2010 to 2020 was when AI came together.

computing power

cloud computing

explosion of digital data

cognition—in

In many ways, we go about our human lives not by reasoning through rules, but by recognizing patterns based on experience.

This approach uses statistical methods for pattern recognition, prediction, and reasoning, in effect building systems through algorithms that learn from data.

Joy Buolamwini,

imbues

“the debate should be about the values instilled in the people and institutions creating this technology.”

The first principle called on us to address the need for fairness, meaning the bias problem. We then moved to two other areas where there was already at least some public consensus—the importance of reliability and safety and the need for strong privacy and security.

key elements that are being used to make decisions. The final ethical principle of AI would be the bedrock for everything else: accountability.

A human being should typically make the initial launch decision, but there isn’t time for humans to approve each individual target.

government surveillance and cyber weapons.25 We felt that the best approach similarly was to advocate for responsible policies and laws regarding AI and the military. We rolled up our sleeves to learn more and develop more refined views. This led us back to our six ethical principles that informed the ethical issues applicable to AI and weapons. We concluded that three were most at stake—reliability and safety, transparency, and most importantly, accountability. Only by addressing all three of these could anyone maintain public confidence that AI would be deployed in a way that would keep

as it is: The prospect of machines with the

One of the joys of parenting comes when a toddler erupts enthusiastically when you return home. This reaction, which lasts until the onset of the teenage years,

Lol!

roil

I often tried to remind people, no one elected us. It seemed not just odd but undemocratic to want tech companies to police the government.

Democracy has always depended on the ability of people to meet and talk with each other and even to discuss their views both in private and in public.

a large part of a job involves tasks that can be completed by AI—and faster—then that job is probably at risk of being replaced by a computer.