Fabio E. Parada MBBS, MSc, MA, FACC

The Stanford Prison Experiment raised a disturbing question: What happens when ordinary people are given power over others without meaningful accountability? Now artificial intelligence presents us with a new version of that question. What happens when we give humans virtually unlimited power over something that cannot resist, retaliate, or even complain? Perhaps the most important question is not whether AI can experience cruelty, but whether humans can become cruel through practicing it. The Stanford experiment was about the psychology of power. The AI experiment may be about the psychology of power without a victim capable of suffering. Perhaps cruelty does not require a conscious victim to change the person committing it. We are not simply training artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence may also be training us. The question is, what kind of humans are we becoming? If we become comfortable practicing cruelty on machines, what happens when we return to interacting with humans? The real danger may not be that AI becomes too human. It may be that humans become less humane. #cmgsays