AI is the frenemy of freedom

Two years ago, a New York company enforced an “attorney exclusion list” at its venues, including Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall, sparking a civil rights clash. Using artificial intelligence-enabled facial recognition technology, MSG Entertainment identified lawyers from firms involved in litigation against the company and barred them from entering concerts, shows and ice hockey and basketball games. Naturally, being lawyers, they sued, denouncing the ban as dystopian. The incident neatly illustrates how our uses of technology can lead to messy wrangles over commercial interests, personal gripes, legal precedents and civil rights. One concern about the accelerating use of AI is that the technology might strip humans of agency and the ability to arbitrate in such disputes by enforcing rigid algorithmic rules. However, tech entrepreneur and investor Reid Hoffman recently argued that rather than eroding human agency, AI could be designed to enhance it. Its purpose should be to empower humans, giving them “superagency."