by James A. Bacon
This is an issue that every university, corporation or government entity, not just the University of Virginia, should be thinking about: How will Artificial Intelligence affect their accounting, finances, and operations?
AI overlords aren’t likely to enslave the human race any time soon. But the technology is progressing at a logarithmic rate, and in the hands of malign or incompetent people it can cause considerable harm long before we find ourselves kneeling before killer robots and addressing them as, “sir.”
The UVA Board of Visitors voted Friday to adopt a wide-ranging two-year audit plan for the UVA Health division. Among many initiatives, the plan included this:
Evaluate the controls and processes governing the secure and ethical use of Artificial Intelligence within the UVA Health System. Additionally, review the measures implemented by the Health Systems, including their approach to governance, security, and ethical considerations.
The way to stop a SkyNet scenario is not sending heroes forward through time to stop the robots from sending assassins back to our current era but putting the systems into place now to make sure the humans stay in full control. If there’s one force in the universe more powerful than AI, it’s bureaucracy. The concern is that AI developers have a head start and, aided by AI, can move a lot faster than the bureaucrats can write new rules and regulations. The bureaucrats had better get hopping!
All joking about the AI apocalypse aside, it’s good to see UVA taking this issue seriously.