Happiness is the next AI KPI if Oxford boffins have their way

Mass unemployment, boiling the planet, and human extinction within a decade: the dystopian visions of AI are well rehearsed. Academics now argue that EU policymakers should ensure the taxpayers helping to fund the tech get something back, a “happiness dividend.”

Researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), led by Professor Sandra Wachter, say citizens who are inadvertently helping to create the next generation of tech billionaires need more than promises that AI will boost economic growth and fatten corporate profits.

Their paper, " Optimising for happiness in EU technology policy to repay public subsidies for AI," published in the Royal Society Open Science, notes that the public backs AI development through funding, tax breaks, and access to land, water, energy, infrastructure, and data.

On data, most people have no say in the matter. Creative work, social media posts, and user interactions have all been swept up to train frontier models, spurring a stream of lawsuits.

The OII team proposes happiness …