Human Rights, Robot Wrongs Quotes

“Part of the issue is the characterisation of generative AI as a human replacement. This makes people treat the tool as a hyperintelligent magical being that deserves reverence. Recent research, however, shows that AI tools get the law wrong between 69 and 88 per cent of the time, producing 'legal hallucinations' when asked 'specific, verifiable questions about random federal court cases'. A human lawyer or judge with that kind of error rate would undermine public faith in justice. Automation bias means we are more likely to believe the machine than the person who questions it, but also more likely to cut it some slack when we know it has got things wrong. Automation bias's little sibling, automation complacency, means that we are also less likely to check the output of a machine than that of a human. The problem is not the technology; it is the human perception of it that leads us to put it to utterly unsuitable uses which makes it dangerous.”
― Susie Alegre, Human Rights, Robot Wrongs: Being Human in the Age of AI

“If governments look at tech regulation through the lens of human rights, it is the flourishing of human society rather than the all-consuming drive for consumption through innovation that takes priority. Constraining the development and deployment of new technology is not anti-science; it is about carefully guiding the direction of human scientific endeavour.”
― Susie Alegre, Human Rights, Robot Wrongs: Being Human in the Age of AI

“When I heard a researcher working on emotional AI explaining the therapeutic benefits of developing a robot that could interact emotionally with people, my immediate response was 'So basically a dog?' 'Dogs poo,' he said. Why not, then, design an AI-powered robot to dispose of dog poo instead of reinventing the dog? When we think about what would benefit humanity, we need to identify the real gaps, or the things that make life less pleasant, rather than replacing the things that bring us joy.”
― Susie Alegre, Human Rights, Robot Wrongs: Being Human in the Age of AI