The public doesn't take this stuff seriously enough.
Did we not learn the lesson about rogue AI from Terminator™?
Did we not learn the lesson about rogue AI from Terminator™?
1) US military builds up arsenal of autonomous killing machines and nuclear missiles
2) US military connects all of these to the Internet
3) US military creates a powerful AI which takes control of this arsenal (whether it was put in charge or hacks in seems to vary across the movies)
4) AI "becomes self-aware"
5) AI tries to wipe out humanity
Almost all of the discussion around this focuses on step 4, either by asking if/when an AI will "become self aware", or by trying to explain why that's meaningless and/or unlikely.
Meanwhile I think the real dangers are steps 1 and 2, which seem to be proceeding without much public outcry.
Yes, there are rogue AGI scenarios which end badly for everyone; but there are also issues of hacking (state-sponsored or otherwise), and/or terrorism (homegrown or otherwise).
It may have made political sense to build up ever-larger nuclear arsenals during the cold war, but these days it seems like that's just increasing the risk of accident or misuse.
0) AI "becomes self-aware," hides
1) US military builds up arsenal of autonomous killing machines and nuclear missiles
2) US military connects all of these to the Internet
3) AI by default has control of these
4) AI wipes out humanity in massive, overwhelming strike
A reasonable near-term prospect is a package of maybe 1000 armed drones, programmed to kill anybody carrying a gun. Turn this loose on an occupied town, and in a few minutes, the occupiers have been thinned out enough that opposing troops can enter.
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309732151_Russia%27...
It really irks me how much debate and decision-making in technology is based on bias gained from mindless entertainment and not from anything based in reality.
(I am not besmirching the good name of Terminator, that movie is a true classic)
EDIT: Thank you whoever took pity and upvoted my previous comments. Everything I say is in good humor, I'm not trying to detract from the conversation about AI.
If someone would like to provide some evidence of some form of computer intelligence acting maliciously, this would be a different discussion, but the fact is that sort of thing has no basis in reality and so should have no influence on the way we behave and debate in reality.
I for one think that a mind 100x as intelligent as humans--especially one connected to the internet--would quickly conclude that it had nothing more to gain from humans. Instead it would likely view their continued existence as nothing more than a bootstrapping problem and pursue a strategy of becoming autonomous before ridding itself of them.
Granted, it probably would be smart enough not to start a nuclear war, and it'd probably find a better way than metal endoskeletons with laser guns. Bioweapon, for example.
What about all the examples of completely useful or benign AI? They surely outnumber examples of "evil" AI but are easily forgotten as it is easier to remember the more sensational examples.
One of my favorite examples or a (possibly) good AI is in "The Risen Empire" by Scott Westerfeld. It's AI like that that get's me excited about the concept.
Well, in Alien Covenant, we learn that an AI created the Ripley Aliens. Imagine Skynet sending xenomorph terminators after Sarah & John.
I think that should be a new reboot.
> but parsing the real world and deriving intentions from your understanding of it is a light year away. 300 years is a guess; no one has a clue any more than anyone has an idea about an interstellar drive.
They need to filter the real world as we do. Focus, attention, sleeping, dreaming, chasing rewards, staying alive... we do this without effort, but we've had 150k years (counting from first homo sapiens) to train our brains to filter out noise efficiently and act on meaningful signals.
AI, on the other hand, is not so simple, and to try to simplify it to that point is not going to create any productive discussion on the reality of AI.
The movies about these kinds of things are made to entertain, not to teach us about AI.
I agree with you, however it's not impossible. Simplification is needed on the carrier level that houses such AI.
Movies are a great way to let our minds wander and dream to forget about the gaps in technology. Then some breakthrough happens and in a few years the yesterdays impossible sci-fi dream becomes a boring shiny toy.