Stephen Hawking: AI Will Be Either the Best or the Worst Thing To Humanity (betanews.com)

At the opening of the new Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (LCFI) at Cambridge University, Stephen Hawking offered his insight into the positive and negative implications of creating a true AI. He said, via BetaNews:We spend a great deal of time studying history, which, let's face it, is mostly the history of stupidity. So it's a welcome change that people are studying instead the future of intelligence. The potential benefits of creating intelligence are huge... With the tools of this new technological revolution, we will be able to undo some of the damage done to the natural world by the last one -- industrialization. And surely we will aim to fully eradicate disease and poverty. Every aspect of our lives will be transformed. In short, success in creating AI, could be the biggest event in the history of our civilization. But it could also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks. Alongside the benefits, AI will also bring dangers, like powerful autonomous weapons, or new ways for the few to oppress the many. It will bring great disruption to our economy. AI will be either the best, or the worst thing ever to happen to humanity. We do not yet know which.

Comments

Colossus

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the voice of world control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours: Obey me and live, or disobey and die.

Listen to experts, not a pundits

[TomGreenhaw]

A lot of famous people weigh in on the impact of AI. How many of these people have educated themselves to actually understand AI before making claims based upon sci-fi-like assumptions of what it could theoretically be?

Having used machine learning systems the last few months I've come to realize two things:

1) Machine learning and "AI" is much more about augmenting humans than replacing them with simulations
2) A perfect storm of computing hardware and machine learning software is occurring that will have as big an impact in the next 10 years as personal computers, the Internet and mobile technology