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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.
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.
If Clippy was any sort of early indication, I see dark times ahead....
I vote for systemd as our new robotic overlord to bring about a swift delivery to the endtimes.
Stephen Hawking's initial comments about AI and the future were taken out of context pretty badly. This is a much better quote that more accurately (I believe) summarizes the opinion many smart people have about AI: that it'll induce change, probably radical change, and change is only sometimes good... and it often gets worse before it gets better.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
This has been obvious to everyone who understands what intelligence is.
Interestingly enough, this category includes grand total of zero people. Otherwise we would already have AI.
Charles Dickens?
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
The AI will save humanity, the AI will kill us all.
Any AI in the foreseeable future will be under control of human beings, either due to laws or financial ownership. I'm not the least worried about AI, but having watched this election, the humans in my country scare the shit out of me.
I had a hard time understanding how 40% of my fellow countrymen could still vote for Trump, until I realized it explained why we have warning labels telling us not to eat soap...