The Controversy About Risks and Threats in Artificial Intelligence

The debate about Artificial intelligence (AI) displays a complex constellation. On the one hand there are the techno-solutionists, who believe in the instrumental value and impact of AI. Here we find utopians and dystopians. For the utopians, AI holds a bold promise, it will boost human capacities, facilitate problem-solving, optimise information management and bring the human race to the next (transhuman) level. The dystopians’ position is a mirror image of the utopian hopes: humans will lose autonomy and control to the AI-enabled techno-social systems that will curb genuine human creativity and reason. In the other large camp of techno-critics, we also find two positions: AI, so one group of critics point out, is far from living up to the promises and claims of its techno-solutionist adherents. While this position wants to defuse the overblown hopes and fears of the techno-solutionist camp, others see several detrimental effects in the spread of AI-enabled systems, albeit not as a consequence of the self-proclaimed capabilities of AI but rather as side-effects of its application in mundane everyday contexts. We will try to disentangle this complex constellation, starting from a discussion, investigating some of the basic claims entertained in the debate about AI. To develop a better understanding of risks and threats we will then introduce four scenarios to discuss the societal, practical impact of AI.