By Saira Blair @SairaBlairWV

As a conservative former legislator, I am a firm believer in limited government. With that said, I do believe one of its roles is protecting our citizens. Seat belt requirements, age restrictions on alcohol and tobacco, and various consumer protection laws all benefit our society. I would classify putting reasonable safeguards around artificial intelligence (AI) as a similar protection.

There are always valid reasons to be concerned about new technology, and AI is no different. To start, AI is improving the quality of fraud attempts targeting our government and citizens, from both domestic and foreign actors. For some individuals, it has led to an unhealthy quasi-relationship with a bot, and for others it has led to deception through misleading photos online. I could easily list ten other threats, but I want to focus on one that the media does not cover as often, which is how quickly this could lead to a loss of individual critical thinking, especially in politics.

One thing about AI tools is that the answers are always framed to be very convincing and sound factual. The thing about facts, though, is that almost everything can be challenged. Our Founding Fathers would be appalled to see us take AI at face value so quickly. Think of Ben Franklin, for instance, a renowned fan of the Socratic method who loved to ask questions and probe until a deeper, ultimate truth could be found. He would be beyond concerned to see us let a tool created by someone else tell us what to believe rather than relying on our own beliefs, values, and opinions.

We also need to acknowledge where the data that trains AI comes from. Newspapers, media, and universities, all of which tend to lean politically left, have a huge impact on how it responds. We need to recognize the bias that is fed into these systems and understand that it will be present in the final product. If we do not step in early enough and acknowledge this flaw, we stand to lose independent thought and the skill of questioning the status quo among the general population.