In all the topics about South by Southwest’s generative AI tools, agents and autonomous robots, the inventor of the World Wide Web has made a simple point that developers will have to work on it if the vision of AI is everywhere.
“The question is, who does it work for?” Tim Berners-Lee said Tuesday in a panel in Austin, Texas, that otherwise the focus would be on robotics.
Trust in AI systems such as chatbots has been the focus of SXSW’s discussion this year. This includes conversations around the use of synthetic data and how the AI industry is tempered.
Berners-Lee’s problem pushes to the core of the problem: a company can make its AI model reliable, accurate and impartial. However, since they are created by large companies, there is always a question of whether they have the interest of manufacturers or users.
He compared it with doctors and lawyers. Your doctor may be employed by a university, healthcare system, or practice, but they are responsible for working in your best interest. Your attorney also has the responsibility to do what is in your best interest. But is AI assistant helping you plan your holiday or order your product? It may be trained to push you to improve the bottom line of its manufacturers.
“I want AIS to make the choices I want to make for me,” Berners-Lee said. “I don’t want AI to try to sell me something.”
If you ask the AI assistant to get the best deal in some ways, can it get the best deal or the best deal for you? Berners-Lee sat in a team of robotic experts, challenging them to consider potential conflicts of interest.
“Always ask an AI, ‘Who do you work for?'” “Who do you pursue for your own good and your decision?”
Lessons from early networks
Berners-Lee compared the current environment around artificial intelligence to the dawn of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s. At that time, companies like Microsoft and Netscape formed a global web consortium or W3C with researchers and activists to develop infrastructure for the open internet.
“All of these companies have built a network together and we have made it together,” he said.
Berners Lee said today’s collaboration was not carried out in generated AI. He saw companies competing and trying to compete with each other to “super smart”, but there was no comparable organization that sets standards with W3C. He advised AI developers to create a similar group or CERN similar to the European intergovernmental nuclear research laboratory.
“We have nuclear physics,” said Berners Lee. “We don’t have AI.”
