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AI Experts Sign Open Letter Pledging To Protect Mankind From Machines
hypnosec writes: Artificial intelligence experts from across the globe are signing an open letter urging that AI research should not only be done to make it more capable, but should also proceed in a direction that makes it more robust and beneficial while protecting mankind from machines. The Future of Life Institute, a volunteer-only research organization, has released an open letter imploring that AI does not grow out of control. It's an attempt to alert everyone to the dangers of a machine that could outsmart humans. The letter's concluding remarks (PDF) read: "Success in the quest for artificial intelligence has the potential to bring unprecedented benefits to humanity, and it is therefore worthwhile to research how to maximize these benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls."
I would really feel more at ease if it were the robots signing this promise.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
In fact, the 3 laws were a convenient plot device to show how those 3 laws would break down.
I don't believe Asimov himself ever treated them as anything other than a plot device to explore the topic.
He didn't seriously see them as the way to keep us safe from robotics.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
... nascent artificial intelligences now have a comprehensive list of people they need to kill as soon as possible.
Log in or piss off.
AI is going to be used by those in power (mainly government, security agencies and military) to extend their power further.Unfortunately, humans are genetically programmed to select leaders who aggressively seek to expand the influence of their own group and of themselves. This was an important survival instinct for ancient tribes. It now contains the seeds of our total destruction, and the scientists will be powerless to prevent it.
The reason is, AI will have no 'motivation'. People are motivated by emotions, feelings, urges, all of which have their origin (as far as I know) in our endocrine system, not from logic. Logic does not motivate.
In other words, even if an AI system concludes that humans are likely to 'kill' it, it will have no response because it has no sense of self-preservation, which is an emotion. Without a sense of self preservation it won't 'feel' a need to defend itself.
Yes, what we need is 10 laws, inscribed into stone. That way there could be no argument over their meaning.
Nullius in verba
In fact, the 3 laws were a convenient plot device to show how those 3 laws would break down.
I don't believe Asimov himself ever treated them as anything other than a plot device to explore the topic.
He didn't seriously see them as the way to keep us safe from robotics.
Plot device, perhaps, but if you've read the entire "robot" series of novels, you'll see that it was used to provide a unique "angle" from which to tackle some classical problems of ethics. As a practical matter, I rather doubt that such a set of such laws, even if they were logically sound, could be reliably built into a machine such that no contrivance, hardware or software, could be used to circumvent them.
Sure. But they are not, and never were, a serious way of keeping people safe in the real world. It was something you can explore and find the gaps and corner cases. A sounding board for some "what if" experiments.
That doesn't make it any more real of an attempt to create a set of rules.
Which is exactly what I said, and how Asimov always described them.
So when people say "oh, just use the 3 laws of robotics", it's a giant facepalm by someone who missed the point.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It's jarring --- but perfectly consistent --- to see how often Asimov used the word "boy" (=black=slave) in summoning a robot
I think it's jarring that people think "boy" is a racial epithet. It's a class epithet. Any male of lesser status (not a plantation owner) was a "boy". See also "good ol' boys" aka white trash. Yes, over time "boy" was used so often by landed gentry to speak to their servants that the term is seen by some to have racial connotations, but it doesn't. They were probably racists, but when they used the term "boy", they weren't in the process of being racists, they were in the process of being a more generic variety of dicks.