In a previous post, I describe how innovation is always exhilarating but also dangerous. As we experiment with the possibilities of technology, we discover risks and pitfalls.
Take for example, the car - the invention of the 20th century. It replaced the horse as the primary means of transportation. But as the machinery improved, the vehicles were able to go at faster speeds and people started dying from crash injuries.
Always the eager learner, human started analyzing what caused these deaths. Once they realilzed speed was an important factor, they set speed limits. Using crash test dummies, the speed limit was determined to be 65 miles per hour. Beyond this speed, injuries became fatal. Below this, people survived. That is, unless they get thrown off the car and get run over by other cars.
Thus the eventual story on the invention of the the seat belt and the airbarg is fraught with trials and errors and of crash test dummies being destroyed beyond recognition. Yet daily, we still hear of deaths.
Why? Because innovation will beget innovation. And humans, despite being in the loop and in control, will continue taking risks (at the expense of other people's and even their own lives). They have this dire need to see how far these innovations will bring them, and what is possible beyond the limits current technology offers. Always the true explorer, people will try to discover what they have not yet experienced.
But unlike Lyka, the dog, who was the first living being placed at tisk by space innovation, we, humans, are the crash test dummies of the innovation called artificial intelligence.
If AI is the proverbial car, you start to wonder what are the analogoous speed limits, seatblets, and airbags that we still have to invent.
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