The AI Mirror

Abstract Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies spark hope for a future in which human limits and frailties are finally overcome—not by us, but by our machines. Yet rather than open new futures, today’s powerful AI technologies reproduce the past. Forged from oceans of our data into immensely powerful and useful but deeply flawed mirrors, they reflect the same errors, biases, and failures of wisdom that we are striving to escape. Our new digital mirrors point backward. They show where our data say that we have already been, never where we might venture together for the first time. To meet today’s grave challenges to our species and our planet, we will need something new from AI, and from ourselves. This…