The Future of Human Agency
My response to the Pew/Elon University Survey . By 2035, will smart machines, bots and systems powered by artificial intelligence be designed to allow humans to easily be in control of most tech-aided decision-making that is relevant to their lives? This question can be interpreted multiple ways: Could there be any technology that allows people to be in control, will some such technology exist, and will most technology be like that? My response is that the technology will exist. It will have been created. But it is not at all clear that we will be using it. There will definitely be decisions out of our control, for example, whether we are allowed to purchase large items on credit. These decisions are made autonomously by the credit agency, which may not use autonomous agents. If the agent denies credit, there is no reason to believe that a human could, or even should, be able to override this decision. A large number of decisions like this about our lives are made by thir
