[Lifestyle] Doom busters: why some things aren’t (quite) as bad as we think

[BirSaNN]

We live in worrying times. From the climate crisis to the culture wars, there is always something to keep us fretting. But sometimes the facts tell a different story – a more hopeful one. Here, we speak to experts in search of some optimism and find 13 reasons to be a little more cheerful

Amelia Tait and Michael Segalov
Sun 30 Jul 2023 07.00 BST
 

You need to register to keep reading
It’s still free to read – this is not a paywall

We’re committed to keeping our quality reporting open. By registering and providing us with insight into your preferences, you’re helping us to engage with you more deeply, and that allows us to keep our journalism free for all. You’ll always be able to control your own privacy settings.

 

1
Is artificial intelligence a force for evil?
Kriti Sharma is a chief product officer for legal technology at Thomson Reuters and the founder of AI for Good

“AI for Good is about building AI in the right way and using it for social good. We’re embedding our philosophy into organisations the world over, with more backing from business leaders, boardrooms, regulators and policymakers than ever before. We’ve learned there are good business reasons for building this technology safely – if you want people to adopt it and use it, they need to be able to trust it.

We’ve done a lot of work around helping domestic abuse victims in South Africa, with a chatbot called rAInbow. It was designed to help people understand their legal rights. It can be quite overwhelming to take that first step to getting help and trusted information if you don’t know where to begin.

I think it’s important to acknowledge the risks this technology brings, but there are also tremendous positive opportunities. I spend a lot of my time building AI that helps improve the justice system and helps people understand their legal rights. With this technology, we can produce legal drafts in minutes that used to take days. Courts can function better and faster, so people can get their hearing dates and we can make the system more efficient.

What excites me is that the new generation of technologists don’t have to have my background. I went to geek school after geek school, but the newest programming language is human language. This means we can bring in people from many different backgrounds to build it. If we do this right, we will be opening up the profile of people who work in technology and AI.”

link: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jul/30/doom-busters-why-some-things-arent-quite-as-bad-as-you-think