AI and Trust

I trusted a lot today. I trusted my phone to wake me on time. I trusted Uber to arrange a taxi for me, and the driver to get me to the airport safely. I trusted thousands of other drivers on the road not to ram my car on the way. At the airport, I trusted ticket agents and maintenance engineers and everyone else who keeps airlines operating. And the pilot of the plane I flew in. And thousands of other people at the airport and on the plane, any of which could have attacked me. And all the people that prepared and served my breakfast, and the entire food supply chain—any of them could have poisoned me. When I landed here, I trusted thousands more people: at the airport, on the road, in this building, in this room. And that was all before 10:30 this morning.

Trust is essential to society. Humans as a species are trusting. We are all sitting here, mostly strangers, confident that nobody will attack us. If we were a roomful of chimpanzees, this would be impossible. We trust many thousands of times a day. Society can’t function without it. And that we don’t even think about it is a measure of how well it all works.

This is an exceptional article and should be required reading for all my fellow AI dorks.

Humans are great at ascribing large, amorphous entities with a human-like personality that allow us to trust them. In some cases, that manifests as a singular person (e.g. Steve Jobs with Apple, Elon Musk with :shudders: X, Michael Jordan with the Chicago Bulls).

That last example made me think of a behind the scenes video I watched last night that covered everything that goes into preparing for a Tampa Bay Buccaneers game. It's amazing how many details are scrutinized by a team of people who deeply care about a football game.

There's a woman who knows the preferred electrolyte mix flavoring for each player.

There's a guy who builds custom shoulder pads with velcro strips to ensure each player is comfortable and resilient to holds.

There's a person who coordinates the schedule to ensure the military fly over occurs exactly at the last line of the national anthem.

But when you think of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from two years ago, you don't think of those folks. You think of Tom Brady.

And in order for Tom Brady to go out on the field and be Tom Brady, he trusts that his electrolytes are grape, his sleeves on his jersey are nice and loose¹, and his stadium is packed with raucous, high-energy fans.

And in order for us to trust virtually anyone in our modern society, we need governments that are stable, predictable, reliable, and constantly standing up to those powerful entities who would otherwise abuse the system's trust. That includes Apple, X, and professional sports teams.

Oh! All of this also reminds me of a fantastic Bluey episode about trust. That show is a masterpiece and should be required viewing for everyone (not just children).