Berrien County Commissioner Chokwe Pitchford has been learning about artificial intelligence as a member of the National Association of Counties A.I. Committee in the past year.
Speaking to colleagues Thursday, Pitchford said the committee will soon have a list of recommendations for both the national and local governments after several discussions. He said recent government needs to be prepared.
“A.I. is getting to a point where you will not be able to detect what is fake and what is real,” Pitchford said. “A guy at Microsoft was telling us that they’re about a year and a half out from deep fakes, audio fakes, all of those things being undetectable by other software.”
Pitchford says one concerning thing about AI is that it learns from what’s on the internet.
“The biggest fear is as the internet becomes more inundated with artificially created information, the model will just learn from itself and make it almost impossible to discern what is real and what is not.”
Pitchford said the committee is drafting a toolkit for governments to use when developing AI policy. Members will also be going to Washington, D.C. to present some recommendations.
Commissioner Jim Curran jokingly remarked to Pitchford, “Your reports are starting to scare me.”
