Why We Must Regulate the Uses of AI…

A clash is brewing in the US between individual states and President Trump over the regulation of AI (Artificial Intelligence). On Thursday last week, Trump signed an executive order that seeks to halt any laws limiting artificial intelligence and block states from regulating AI technology. This is seen as a major victory for the tech companies who have campaigned against any restrictions on the development or use of AI.

But what does this mean for ordinary people?

Far too often our media, by accident or design, tend to focus discussions regarding AI on outlandish scenarios that no sane person will find credible. We have witnessed journalists talk up scenarios where AI decides to take over the world and creates a doomsday situation or one where our lives are controlled by computers. I suggest the real risks are more mundane.

Face Recognition

Merseyside Police announced on Twitter that they will begin to use live face recognition screening from cameras mounted on some of their vehicle from Monday 15^th December and have reassured us that they will follow detailed rules to guarantee privacy for ordinary people. Unsurprisingly, this has led some to question the growing power of government, but are we missing something more immediate and more important?

Most of the AI risk comes not from government use of AI, but from private companies.

Just one week ago a Dutch journalist did an investigation using technology that anyone can purchase (AI glasses from Meta, together with an application called PimEyes) and was able to walk around Amsterdam, greeting complete strangers by name and telling them about the information his glasses was feeding them from their online presence.

Importantly, anyone with money, you, me, the local criminal, or the man who looks at you strangely across the bar can purchase access to this technology and legally use it to track you or your children, using their online profiles. Yet, most of the focus is on limiting the police use of such technology, not the unsupervised use by the public.

Different Prices for Different People

Can businesses use your online data to overcharge you? The short answer is yes. It’s a practice called personalised pricing, dynamic pricing or surveillance pricing.

Almost two decades ago, I introduced an exercise for my Y8 ICT classes where I got them to experiment with purchasing airline tickets to Malaga online. They all tended to use EasyJet, but as we repeated the exercise, we noticed something strange – pupils in the same classroom could be quoted different prices for exactly the same flight, and we came to the conclusion that by having lots of people trying to access a particular flight was influencing the airline software to raise the price.

Back then, this was a novelty and limited in scope, but today it is commonplace and is known as dynamic pricing or surge pricing, and there are laws governing but not outlawing this. (eg Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Act 2024)

However, in the US, AI has allowed businesses to go much further. A remarkable investigation by ‘More Perfect Union’ has uncovered a technique used by big American stores where AI is used to divide the public into different price bands, and then different prices are set for different bands by online grocery stores. Their video starts with a quote from the former Federal Trade Commission chairperson, Lina Khan who says, “The holy grail for a long time has been: What if we could charge every single person the maximum amount that we know they’re able to, or willing to pay?”

The video goes on to explain how the online shopping that we all now use leaves us open to surveillance pricing where we can be charged 15% more, than other customers, for exactly the same items based on our online activities, including our history of online spending.

Surveillance pricing is predicted to drive prices upwards.

Businesses are not our Friends

Capitalism and businesses are part of life, they are not our enemies, but they are not our friends either. (In a sense, a large business looks at its customers and workforce in the same way a farmer looks without malice on the bullocks he will eventually sell for profit – and we know where they end up.) The purpose of a business is to make as large a profit as possible and the danger with unregulated technology is that it shifts the balance of power in favour of the business and away from the individual.

Big tech companies campaign against any restrictions on AI because AI helps them to increase their profits – this is good for them and bad for you. Their systems are watching you, learning your patterns and using that to charge everyone accordingly.

AI is not going to destroy humanity or the world, but for some of us, it will take away our jobs, make us poorer, or increase the price of groceries. We need to regulate it.