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Aside from the usual dross published on a certain business networking site this week, where PR people tell you on a daily basis why a child’s birthday party is like crisis management, or consultants claim they can save your business based on five things their four-year-old learned at school, was an interesting stream about AI and the future pitfalls that lie ahead.
Of course, the most useful comments on the topic only briefly appeared at the top of the feed before the algorithm whisked them away again, but they were there none the less.
And the sensible discussion veered away from nonsense about the end of the world, and focused on the good and the bad of a continually developing technology.
As with every advancement, the underlying concern is that just because you can build something, it doesn’t mean you should.
Would we, for example, really consider social media and the way it was developed, tweaked, and unleashed largely unchecked a good thing. You might believe, for example, that the lack of oversight enabled the creation of something that has been more harmful than beneficial to human existence.
There is no putting the AI genie back in the bottle, but consider the damage it is already doing. Using it to write and think critically about tasks means people get dumber, because they don’t have to think for themselves or develop the ability to do so.
Checks and balances could potentially have solved some of the problems governments around the world are now trying to fix. An AI race without adequate control, and not what tech companies consider adequate, promises more of the same.
And in the spirit of what passes for informed comment on LinkedIn, here is what that discussion on AI says about Hong Kong leader John Lee Ka-chiu’s annual Policy Address and in particular the money given to sport.
Little more than a line item in the grand scheme of things was the announcement that the government planned to “cumulatively increase” the number of full-time athletes in the city by 20 per cent in the next five years.
There is a lot of wiggle room in that bullet point, but the hope must be that it is not a plan to add to the 538 athletes across 22 Tier A sports that are listed as being elite by the Hong Kong Sports Institute.
For context, there are 22 in Billiard Sports carrying that designation, and of those just three might claim to be worthy of the tag elite athlete - snooker’s Marco Fu Ka-Chun and Ng On-yee, and pool’s Robbie Capito. Pick 10 people in the street and see if anyone even recognises anyone else on the list.
Sport’s bosses have also decided we need 10 elite athletes in tenpin bowling.
And of the 538, some might not be full time and some who are have not yet become elite, because in the 2023-24 financial year the HKSI claimed 620 were competing for a living.
What might this have to do with AI? Well, just because Hong Kong can splash out what is obviously a surfeit of taxpayer cash on this, should it really be doing so without far better oversight and control.
After all, a significant number of athletes in Tier A deserve neither to be considered elite, nor for their sport to occupy the highest rungs, with gymnastics and athletics springing immediately to mind.
Why add an additional 20 per cent to an institute that largely polices itself, writes its own policies and makes excuses for athletes, coaches and administrators who have failed to hit quite generous targets for years?
Two much red tape, and creativity and development are stifled. Too little, and the people you pass in the street without so much as a second look, or probably even a first, are given the same theoretical standing as Cheung Ka-long and Siobhan Haughey, or go about building machines that will one day rule the world.
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| Josh Ball |
News Editor, Sport & Racing
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