I grew up watching Star Trek, the original series with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy - Kirk and Spock. And that is where, as a child of six or seven, I first encountered the notion of artificial intelligence – manmade technology that ultimately exceeds the ability of its creators to control it. In one memorable episode, the intrepid Captain Kirk encounters a wayward space probe, launched from earth, which, after being damaged in space believes its mission is to destroy anything that is not perfect, including all of the humans on the starship Enterprise. But after the probe mistakes Kirk for its creator, it recognizes its own imperfection, and determines it must therefore destroy itself. AI is much older than Star Trek. The term artificial intelligence was coined in the 1950’s, but the idea of intelligent machines can be found in fiction dating back thousands of years. But it’s no longer fiction. AI is not only a reality, we’ve been using it for years in facial and voice recognition and now more obviously in things like ChatGPT. Most of us don’t really understand AI, how it works and what it’s capable of, but already have some sense that it’s potentially threatening to human beings. More alarming, is that the people who do understand it, the people who run the companies that are developing AI are afraid that it’s already out of control. They are calling for a worldwide slowdown in AI development. Doing that will require the sort of leadership we used to get from international organizations, often led by the United States of America. The current administration seems little concerned about AI and less interested in leading the world. But ultimately the U.S. will need to act, something which might be much more likely after the upcoming midterms. In the meantime, other more responsible nations should come together to begin to develop protocols and guidelines to control AI development. The draft of a global charter. Canada should take a lead role in this. And this needs to happen quickly, within months. Because in the language of Star Trek – we are hurtling toward a place no person or machine has ever gone before.
