Seems like the same problem as nuclear power, GM foods, and just about every other new but complex technology. People don't understand it, and we always fear what we don't understand.
>Seems like the same problem as nuclear power, GM foods, and just about every other new but complex technology. People don't understand it, and we always fear what we don't understand.
Well, it's also that people who do understand it, can also be severely worried about scientists not understanding it and playing fast and loose for profit.
Medicine/biology can not even put out a decent non-conflicting dietary advice that holds its position for more than 10 years, but they are allowed to assemble genes they half-understand and put them out in an ecosystem whose interactions and complex interplays they understand 10% and just see what happens...
Nuclear power generation and agricultural GMOs definitely do have their opponents that use end-of-the-world kinds of arguments, and the uninformed that accept those.
Nuclear especially would be my go-to pristine example of this effect.
Nuclear has the disadvantage that high-profile accidents actually happened, and the period where everyone in western Europe had to watch their food chain for bioaccumulative radionucletides tends to stick in the memory.
The nuclear has been demonized (in popular culture) due to the psyops of the Cold War. A backslash against nuclear power generation has always been expected.
The use of GMOs has been demonized since corporations decided to patent them and sue farmers that owns naturally hybridized plantations. (see agricultural patent trolls)
Abuse is what generates criticism and resistance to the use of new technology. Yes, the reasons you hear may not be wholly technically correct.
Again, if the trust of internet users is abused, and those who browse are tracked and profiled and spyed on; then should we be surprised that there are publications like this?
That's how you get stories about creepy AIs. And a "technically wrong" label doesn't help, preventing abuse is much more effective.
I think it's quite strange that when respected and rational people like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking warn against dangers of AI, some people still dismiss it as irrational FUD. Did you consider they might have a point?
On the other hand I think it's quite strange that a talented entrepreneur and a physicist, among others, are considered as a source of expertise in a field they have nothing to do with, per se. I don't see any of the top AI/ML researchers
voicing these kind of concerns. And while I highly respect Musk and Hawking, and agree that they are rational
people, their concerns seem to be driven by "fear of the unknown" more than anything else, like another comment
pointed out.
Whenever I see discussions about the dangers of AI, they are always about those Terminator-like AI-overlords
that will destroy us all. Or that humans will be made redundant because robots will take all our jobs.
But there are never concrete arguments or scenarios, just vague expressions of fear. Honestly, if I think about all the things HUMANS have done to each other and the planet, I can hardly imagine anything worse than us.
Maybe, but it's worst case scenario. AI can't prove, nor disprove, nor prove improvability of the conjecture, because shortest proof requires 10^200 terabytes.
Make no mistake, FUD kills. If you're in a position of influence, you want to make goddamned sure you're right before you hold back human (and machine) progress by focusing only on Things That Could Go Horribly Wrong. Otherwise, you're basically asking for unintended consequences instead of just trying to warn humanity about them.
... which is just outrageously inappropriate at this stage. If he goes full Howard Hughes, which I'm increasingly worried about, he could set us back decades.
Can you please write what concerns do they have? I have tried to google Elon Musk's quotes about AI, but all I found was that he said, we should fear AI, because it is like summoning a demon... Does he have some thought-out points you refer to? ..because from all of his quotes it seems that he doesn't know how ai works.
I think the AI concerns have been summarised below in this thread:
A) We're striving to make strong AI.
B) It seems plausible that as computing and AI research continues, we'll get to strong AI eventually given that brains are "just" extremely complex computers.
C) We do not know what strong AI will be able to do or how it will act, if it exceeds human intelligence.
The concern is not with the current state of the art, but what could happen in the future if we continue improving AI without seriously considering some safeguards against making a system that at some point becomes clever enough to start making itself even smarter.
I won't claim I'm an AI expert, but I think people like Musk and Hawkins deserve (based on their accomplishments) to be taken serious when they express concerns. I very much doubt that everyone in this thread dismissing their comments as irrational fear mongering have enough knowledge on the topic to do so.
Lately, I think the attention is getting into Elon's head.. It's so unsettling because Elon was our lord and savior and now as if corrupted by his newly found fully grown hair, he has it seems given in to the media attention. Tesla, PayPal and SpaceX I can get behind. Hyperloop? AI neurolink thing? Wtf happened to you Elon?
Well, it's also that people who do understand it, can also be severely worried about scientists not understanding it and playing fast and loose for profit.
Medicine/biology can not even put out a decent non-conflicting dietary advice that holds its position for more than 10 years, but they are allowed to assemble genes they half-understand and put them out in an ecosystem whose interactions and complex interplays they understand 10% and just see what happens...