Stephen Hawking On Genetic Engineering vs. AI

Pointing to this story on Ananova, bl968 writes: "Stephen Hawking the noted physicist has suggested using genetic engineering and biomechanical interfaces to computers in order to make possible a direct connection between brain and computers, 'so that artificial brains contribute to human intelligence rather than opposing it.' His idea is that with artificial intelligence and computers, which increase their performance every 18 months, we face the real possibility of the enslavement of the human race." garren_bagley adds this link to a similar story on Yahoo!, unfortunately just as short. Hawking certainly is in a position shared by few to talk about the intersection of human intellect and technology.

Comments

Hawking Is Wrong About Intelligence

[Louis Savain]

The truth of the matter is that intelligence is driven by motivation. A super intelligent system that is conditioned from the start to derive pleasure from obeying humans and to have an aversion to anything that brings harm to humans will not go against its conditioning. It will not want ot. This is what psychology and advances in bio-neurological research have taught us in the last one hundred years. The idea that an intelligent machine will necessarily enslave humanity is pure hogwash. Hawking is just the latest crackpot (Bill Joy and Vernor Vinge) to make pronouncements regarding the supposed threat of AI to humanity.

Now it does not suprise me one bit that Hawking would come up with such cockamamie nonsense. This is the same guy who claims on his site that relativity does not forbid time travel. I think Hawking should stick to his Star-Trek voodoo physics and leave AI to people who know what they're talking about.