FT Letter: AI development and use would benefit from more ‘friction’

Mikkel Krenchel, ReD Associates, New York

Reading Richard Waters (“Can AI be regulated?”, Opinion, May 19), I began to think about Roger Fisher. He suggested that carrying the nuclear codes in a briefcase made annihilation too easy. Instead, the US president ought to travel with a butcher’s knife and a volunteer carrying the codes in a capsule implanted next to their heart. To kill millions of strangers by the push of a button, the president would first have to murder a single human being in cold blood.

The formula for this type of problem — often called productive friction — is simple: introduce a deliberate obstacle to slow people down and have them grapple with the consequences to make better decisions. Fisher’s is an extreme example, but productive frictions are widespread and already well embedded in many industries: for example, in the stock market, which shuts down automatically at times of extreme volatility to prevent bad trades, or on certain investment apps that build in pauses before users can invest.

The current debate on artificial intelligence regulation tends to focus on permission and speed; what should and shouldn’t be allowed, or whether we need moratoriums or regulatory approvals to slow down the breakneck pace of development. But the best productive frictions don’t just slow you down or stop you in your tracks — they help you make better choices.

Fisher could have suggested that the codes simply be covered in concrete and buried 10 feet underground. That might slow the president down, but not make them “realise what death is” to quote Fisher. It seems one real danger of emerging AI is not just what it can do or allow us to do, but the convenience with which it might happen.

With AI regulation, we need to go beyond simply what should and shouldn’t be permitted. How can we ensure that the builders, users and consumers of AI and AI-generated content both see and feel the risks of their actions? What is the equivalent of the capsule and the butcher’s knife for AI? Pause for thought, no?

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