Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540

Elon Musk: artificial intelligence is our biggest existential threat
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/27/elon-musk-artificial-intelligence-ai-biggest-existential-threat

A lot of this is based in fear of the Singularity. Vernor Vinge, Ray Kurzweil are the big proponents of this theory.

That's not all of it but, no, Hawking and Musk are not nuts. There are real risks.

Couldn't you just attach a large magnet and wipe the memory off the chips. Shaman the bot cease to function.

Dune is based on the premise of the Butlerian Jihad, where humanity had to rise up and fight against the Thinking Machines that were enslaving them. Because of this, computers and artificial intelligence have been banned, and enhancing the human mind is emphasized.

Ah, but there's always an Ix pushing the boundaries...

A genie released, a bottle, etc.

If robots were able to self reproduce and make changes to their own design, then the criteria needed for evolution would be present. Hawking's concern is that under those circumstances, robots could evolve faster than humans. In the long run that could leave humans unable to compete.

It would be incredibly stupid of us humans to create those circumstances. If we do then we probably deserve to be wiped out ;)

Didn't you doubters ever see the Terminator? It's all fun and games until Skynet becomes self aware.

Skynet's not likely to occur in our lifetime.

The bigger worry is machine autonomy and our dependency thereon. Autonomous / driverless cars sound great, and will in actuality provide a great deal of benefit -- cut down on DUI, enable the elderly to have a better social life, make ride sharing easier, and so on.

However, the technology and system of inputs necessary to make it work will be substantially more complex. When that system breaks, there will be two issues. First, rampant chaos. Cars will crash, for sure. More problematic, people won't know how to drive. So large swaths of the economy will shut down. Second, the group of people fully capable of understanding an architecture like that will be much less common.

Now, take this to all sectors of the economy. Autonomous farming (where GPS-operated combines are already becoming common)? Oil pumping? Soon, very few people will be involved in processes on which many others depend.

Think of it this way: the problem isn't that the machines might think for themselves. It's that we *won't* be able to think for ourselves anymore.

Don't forget hackers causing problems the more autonomous we become.

Alpiner Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> However, the technology and system of inputs
> necessary to make it work will be substantially
> more complex. When that system breaks, there will
> be two issues. First, rampant chaos. Cars will
> crash, for sure.
>

The control systems for automated cars are not found in a centralized location. Each car has its own suite of sensors and processing capability. GPS can help with overall navigation but maintaining lanes, stopping at signals and for pedestrians, avoiding other vehicles, etc are all self-contained within each vehicle. They are able to operate in complete isolation from electronic signals eternal to the car.

Idiocracy.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/

In reality, we do not even need to get that far into artificial intelligence. All we need to do is to turn enough of our lives over to computers, have a bug in an OS do something to crash the infrastructure and we could be back in the stone age in no time.

BTW, earth is going to end in a few billion years, better get all paranoid about that as well.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2015 12:52AM by MJ.

Mankind goes out into the stars, then a group of Mormons settle on Dantana, a planet that a race of big bugs thinks is theirs. The bugs launch an attack on the community call Port Joe Smith. The bugs continue the attack by flinging asteroids at Earth, one wipes out Buenos Aires.

It could happen.

Live in fear of all the possible ways humanity could end.

It is virtually certain, humanity will, at some point, end.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2015 12:44AM by MJ.

AI is the next step in creative evolution, the last one being the rise of animals that use tools and thought to change their world. This has already given rise to virtual worlds, awesome video games, social networks, and kids permanently attached to smart phones. So, the line between us and our machines is already getting blurred.

Humans will never allow machines to get the upper hand. Our egos are too big. We could have replicants, like in Blade Runner. But the stuff of souls and the stuff of machines are totally different things.

They're designing robo-hookers in Japan. That's going to save some British guys from vacuum cleaner lock. I don't know why the poor saps are always English. Maybe their vacuums are sexier than ours. I'm holding out for an asexual servobot who will watch bad movies with me and laugh at my quips. I'll call it Tom.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/30/robots-creepy_n_1242603.html

fuckin robots!!!

There was a lame sci-fi movie back in the 70's about two super computers who together decide to end the human race as that was the biggest threat to their (the computer's) existence.

RB

The movie is called "Colossus: The Forbin Project." I saw it as part of a film studies class at my university in the mid- to late 70s. I thought it was interesting at the time.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2015 10:41AM by summer.

If you are talking about "Colossus: The Forbin Project", the computers did not destroy man. The computers did what they were designed to do, end wars. They imposed a non-emotional version of morality on mankind.

You are correct. I'd forgotten some of the details.

RB

Couldn't artificial intelligent robots be used to clean the toilets in the ward houses instead of employing humans?

That would be a great use for them...until they realized it's a shitty job and say fuck it! LOL

Ron Burr

Well, that's one set of opinions. The creators and writers of the Star Trek series generally had a more benign view. I loved the character Data's struggles with human things that he could not quite understand.

The current movie "Interstellar" views robots as mankind's helpers. I loved when one of the characters dialed back the humor setting on one of the robots. He reduced the robot to knock-knock jokes.

The machines require fossil fuels both for manufacture and operation. They also require increasingly scarce (rare earth) metals which require more fossil fuels to find, extract, and process. The fossil fuel era may be ending much sooner than we think. For an excellent recent analysis see: http://ourfiniteworld.com/2015/01/06/oil-and-the-economy-where-are-we-headed-in-2015-16/

I've-got-more-immediate-worries-ly yrs,

S

Which is why he's building the first Gigafactory to produce more batteries than the rest of the world combined, out of graphene, a 2D material that is a game changer. He's also investing in AI companies. Hawking gave his dire warning while being introduced to his new operating system, which allows him to communicate his genius with the rest of us.

How many bureaucratic drones can't think and obey computers blindly?

It's a planet of ditzy receptionists run by windows xp coming I tell ya!

The only thing I know for sure is every six months TBM's sit and listen in awe of what they think is intelligence, but it's artificial...

are you forgetting how captain Kirk defeated the computer ?

Which time? There were so many. lol

My favorite was Spock's help in one of them: "Logic is a little tweeting bird chirping in meadow. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad."