{"id":8218,"date":"2025-11-06T05:06:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T05:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/06\/scientists-need-a-positive-vision-for-ai-html\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T05:06:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T05:06:14","slug":"scientists-need-a-positive-vision-for-ai-html","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/06\/scientists-need-a-positive-vision-for-ai-html\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Need a Positive Vision for AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Scientists Need a Positive Vision for AI<\/div>\n

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For many in the research community, it\u2019s gotten harder to be optimistic about the impacts of artificial intelligence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As authoritarianism is rising around the world, AI-generated \u201cslop\u201d is overwhelming legitimate media, while AI-generated deepfakes<\/a> are spreading misinformation<\/a> and parroting extremist messages. AI is making warfare more precise and deadly amidst intransigent conflicts. AI companies are exploiting people in the global South who work as data labelers, and profiting from content creators worldwide by using their work without license or compensation. The industry is also affecting an already-roiling climate with its enormous energy demands<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, particularly in the United States<\/a>, public investment in science seems to be redirected<\/a> and concentrated<\/a> on AI at the expense of other disciplines. And Big Tech<\/a> companies are consolidating their control over the AI ecosystem. In these ways and others, AI seems to be making everything worse.<\/p>\n

This is not the whole story. We should not resign ourselves to AI being harmful to humanity. None of us should accept this as inevitable, especially those in a position to influence science, government, and society. Scientists and engineers can push AI towards a beneficial path. Here\u2019s how.<\/p>\n

The Academy\u2019s View of AI<\/h3>\n

A Pew study<\/a> in April found that 56 percent of AI experts (authors and presenters of AI-related conference papers) predict that AI will have positive effects on society. But that optimism doesn\u2019t extend to the scientific community at large. A 2023 survey<\/a> of 232 scientists by the Center for Science, Technology and Environmental Policy<\/a> Studies at Arizona State University found more concern than excitement about the use of generative AI<\/a> in daily life\u2014by nearly a three to one ratio.<\/p>\n

We have encountered this sentiment repeatedly. Our careers of diverse applied work have brought us in contact with many research communities: privacy, cybersecurity<\/a>, physical sciences, drug discovery<\/a>, public health<\/a>, public interest technology, and democratic innovation. In all of these fields, we\u2019ve found strong negative sentiment about the impacts of AI. The feeling is so palpable that we\u2019ve often been asked to represent the voice of the AI optimist, even though we spend most of our time writing about the need to reform the structures of AI development.<\/p>\n

We understand why these audiences see AI as a destructive force, but this negativity engenders a different concern: that those with the potential to guide the development of AI and steer its influence on society will view it as a lost cause and sit out that process.<\/p>\n

Elements of a Positive Vision for AI<\/h3>\n

Many<\/a> have<\/a> a<\/a>rgu<\/a>ed<\/a> that<\/a> turn<\/a>ing<\/a> the tide<\/a> of climate action requires clearly articulating a path towards positive outcomes. In the same way, while scientists and technologists should anticipate, warn against, and help mitigate the potential harms of AI, they should also highlight the ways the technology can be harnessed for good, galvanizing public action towards those ends.<\/p>\n

There are myriad ways to leverage and reshape AI to improve peoples\u2019 lives, distribute rather than concentrate power, and even strengthen democratic processes. Many examples have arisen from the scientific community and deserve to be celebrated.<\/p>\n

Some examples: AI is eliminating communication barriers across languages, including under-resourced contexts like marginalized sign languages<\/a> and indigenous African languages<\/a>. It is helping policymakers incorporate the viewpoints of many constituents through AI-assisted deliberations<\/a> and legislative engagement<\/a>. Large language models<\/a> can scale individual dialogs to a<\/a>ddress<\/a> climate<\/a>\u2013<\/a>change skepticism<\/a>, spreading accurate information at a critical moment. National labs are building AI foundation models<\/a> to accelerate scientific research. And throughout the fields of medicine and biology, machine learning<\/a> is solving scientific problems like the prediction of protein structure in aid of drug discovery, which was recognized with a Nobel Prize<\/a> in 2024.<\/p>\n

While each of these applications is nascent and surely imperfect, they all demonstrate that AI can be wielded to advance the public interest. Scientists should embrace, champion, and expand on such efforts.<\/p>\n

A Call to Action for Scientists<\/h3>\n

In our new book, Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship<\/a><\/em>, we describe four key actions for policymakers committed to steering AI toward the public good.<\/p>\n

These apply to scientists as well. Researchers should work to reform<\/strong> the AI industry to be more ethical, equitable, and trustworthy. We must collectively develop<\/a> ethical<\/a> norms<\/a> for research that advance and applies AI, and should use and draw attention to AI developers who adhere to those norms.<\/p>\n

Second, we should resist<\/strong> harmful uses of AI by documenting the negative applications of AI and casting a light on inappropriate uses.<\/p>\n

Third, we should responsibly use<\/strong> AI to make society and peoples\u2019 lives better, exploiting its capabilities to help the communities they serve.<\/p>\n

And finally, we must advocate for the renovation<\/strong> of institutions to prepare them for the impacts of AI; universities, professional societies, and democratic organizations are all vulnerable to disruption.<\/p>\n

Scientists have a special privilege and responsibility: We are close to the technology itself and therefore well positioned to influence its trajectory. We must work to create an AI-infused world that we want to live in. Technology, as the historian Melvin Kranzberg observed<\/a>, \u201cis neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.\u201d Whether the AI we build is detrimental or beneficial to society depends on the choices we make today. But we cannot create a positive future without a vision of what it looks like.<\/p>\n

This essay was written with Nathan E. Sanders, and originally appeared in IEEE Spectrum<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Scientists Need a Positive Vision for AI For many in the research community, it\u2019s gotten harder to be optimistic about the impacts of artificial intelligence. As authoritarianism is rising around the world, AI-generated \u201cslop\u201d is overwhelming legitimate media, while AI-generated deepfakes are spreading misinformation and parroting extremist messages. AI is making warfare more precise and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[167,57,268,1],"tags":[87],"class_list":["post-8218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ai","category-bruce-schneier","category-llm","category-uncategorized","tag-bruce-schneier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8218"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}