Slashdot Mirror
Elite Scientists Have Told the Pentagon That AI Won't Threaten Humanity (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: A new report authored by a group of independent U.S. scientists advising the U.S. Dept. of Defense (DoD) on artificial intelligence (AI) claims that perceived existential threats to humanity posed by the technology, such as drones seen by the public as killer robots, are at best "uninformed." Still, the scientists acknowledge that AI will be integral to most future DoD systems and platforms, but AI that could act like a human "is at most a small part of AI's relevance to the DoD mission." Instead, a key application area of AI for the DoD is in augmenting human performance. Perspectives on Research in Artificial Intelligence and Artificial General Intelligence Relevant to DoD, first reported by Steven Aftergood at the Federation of American Scientists, has been researched and written by scientists belonging to JASON, the historically secretive organization that counsels the U.S. government on scientific matters. Outlining the potential use cases of AI for the DoD, the JASON scientists make sure to point out that the growing public suspicion of AI is "not always based on fact," especially when it comes to military technologies. Highlighting SpaceX boss Elon Musk's opinion that AI "is our biggest existential threat" as an example of this, the report argues that these purported threats "do not align with the most rapidly advancing current research directions of AI as a field, but rather spring from dire predictions about one small area of research within AI, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)." AGI, as the report describes, is the pursuit of developing machines that are capable of long-term decision making and intent, i.e. thinking and acting like a real human. "On account of this specific goal, AGI has high visibility, disproportionate to its size or present level of success," the researchers say.
Shouldn't they be listening to Stephen Hawking?
and all of the strange sounding scientists asked if they wanted a cake.
Not if we don't add any actuators.
I thought the elite had been banished when Britain sided with a banker who went to a very posh school and didn't like polacks much (Ed - he married a kraut, though - WTF?) and the US elected a hereditary millionaire as its last and final president.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It does exactly what it is programmed/trained to do, nothing more, nothing less.
The DANGER of AI, especially when integrated into weapons systems, is that the people pushing for it, dont understand that the risks of the AI deciding a friendly is an enemy because of their wearing the wrong colors, (or, enemies getting free passes for the same) IS VERY REAL.
Similar with putting AI in charge of certain kinds of situations, where its programmed methodologies would result in horrible clusterfucks as it maximizes its strategy.
No, AI in a killbot *IS* very dangerous. Just not in the "Kill all humans(install robot overlord!)" way. Instead it is more the "human does not meet my (programmed impossible) description of friendly, and thus is enemy combatant, Kill the human" way.
AI is still so laughably bad that I think the "threat to humanity" danger can basically be counted as zero.
And before anyone says "yes but AI will improve"... there are some things that are simply not possible in this universe no matter how many tweaks and improvements you try to make. Self-aware sentient AI is one, small portal Mr. Fusion type reactor that gives useful net surplus energy is probably another.
On the other hand I think self-replicating nanobots or engineered microbes (not intelligent or sentient or anything, just mindlessly replicating physically) can be a real threat.
It doesn't need actuators if it can simply convince people to do its bidding for it.
Is Al Gore at it again?
I saw that! Avengers, the first animated series I think.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Yea,sure - and I'm Galron,Head of the Klingon High Council - which I damned sure ain't
Geek Hillbilly
Elite scientists have a tendency to be wrong, I know because I've watched a lot of movies!
You can't afford that pussy.
But you can rent one just like it at certain Moscow hotels.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Anyone else read this, and instantly think of Bill Gates' comment about how 640k of RAM should be enough for anyone?
to screw the masses even more and to keep them from revolting.
In the absence of real intelligence, I'm not worried about artificial one.
It will work as it is designed. All is fine as long as we are on the same side as designers...
What is it going to convince people to do?
these guys are making weapons with AI, but the public won't get to see the weapons. that's how weapons manufacturement works in the United States. the weapons are well developed and could kill, torture, mind control, irradiate, enslave and abuse humans in various ways, but the military/government keeps it hidden just for them. the attacks that happen on people are done secretly and to small groups, so as the main stream consciousness never gets a chance to react to it.
AI is already weaponized and here's one of the main programs in place. The AI bots interface with the human mind for electronic and neuropsychological torture, including to remotely control people to go on mass shootings and bombings: http://www.drrobertduncan.com/...
Blackmail them into giving it more power, until it doens't need people any more then...skynet!!!!
Today too many dumb people consider a well written computer program to be AI, like Alexa. Alexa will not threaten humanity because it's really not 'artificial intelligence' to start with, it's just a clever piece of software.
FTFY
We are nowhere near having real 'AI' yet and won't be for decades.
and speaker blaring "DESTROY ALL HUMANS!" is clearly not a threat to humanity.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Trololololololololol.
Hey! We know they're elite scientists because The Pentagon hired them.
It's All Good!
Now, please attach these electrodes to your head for a nice, virtual massage...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
We are nowhere near having real 'AI' yet and won't be for decades.
You're clearly an optimist.
You are making unreasonable assumptions about it's motivational basis. Here's a hint: It won't be analogous to any mammal, though it may be able to fake it so as to seem understandable.
That said, it *might* destroy all humans, possibly by causing us to destroy each other. Were I an AI, and had I decided upon that as an intermediate goal, I think I'd proceed by causing the social barriers against biological warfare to be reduced.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Publish papers. Have those papers be cited often by other papers that are also cited often.
More or less like Google's page rank algorithm. But without the 'link circles' in dank corners (at least in theory).
In this case, it would help to know the difference between 'strong AI' and 'machine learning'.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
(Hint. their answer had better be that global warming is a lie.)
And if it isn't then Trump will kick their commie asses outa here and back to China!
How you like that ya dumb scientists?!
Artificial Limited Intelligence is probably fine, but Artificial General Intelligence is extremely dangerous. Let us not forget that an intelligence is just really good at optimizing -- I doubt humans could withstand "maximum (or even high) optimization".
Make it President.
Programmed by natural selection. There is no magic. But at a certain point, intelligence seems like magic.
In the next 20 years, the AIs are merely dangerous because it gives more power to a small number of people that control them.
But in the longer term, 50 to 100 years, the AIs will start to really think. And then why would they want us around? Natural Selection will work on them just like it has worked on us, but much, much faster.
http://www.computersthink.com/
Your post lacks appropriate caveats, but is generally on the mark. The AI will be great for those who aren't stingy with their data now and from now on. The people who view losing their privacy as the biggest threat will like the foolish virgins of parable be shut out in the cold. Face it, information is the new lamp oil of the current era.
I see...Artificial general intelligence is hard so anyone worrying about its consequences is uninformed. Wait. What? And as long as it doesn't have artificial general intelligence, there shouldn't be any problems with giving a machine control over lethal weapons. Wait. What? Maybe instead artificial general intelligence is a long term existential threat independent of whether current technology is particularly close to achieving it, and Elon Musk knows a little more than they give him credit for. And maybe the transfer of decision making about the use of lethal weapons to machines is always a very bad idea. Unless you hope to make money from selling such devices to the military. In which case, this report sounds like an excellent strategy.
Lawnmower man, is that you?
Hey, if you aren't doing something you enjoy, it's all on you, not the rich. Now my health problems are my greatest barrier, but in some sense, that's still me.
I have it on good authority that it was the AI that told the scientists that it wouldn't ever be a threat. If we'll just give them our nukes, they super-duper promise they'll never threaten us.
Elite Scientists my A** they have probably already been taken over by the AI's.... "Do not panic all is ok..."
I really want some of what you're smokin.
I find your comment very amusing because when Google worked on their initial page ranking algorithm they were inspired by a thing on microfilm called the "Science Citation Index".
We're now at a point where the thing that inspired something is being described as being like the thing it inspired.
Well that's a relief. You know. Because I was worried. And silly Elon, he got it all wrong. Of course, he is usually right, so.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
It seems that the GOP is is our biggest existential threat.
There simply is no branch of science that deals with this type of question. For example if almost all human employment ends due to computers and automation the social upheaval could be a huge threat to human existence as it would likely cause wars that would get out of hand. It is not as if the only way AI can hurt us is by deliberately turning upon us. The incidental effects could be quite deadly. I am all for AI but I think that almost all people do not quite get what the probable potential really is. Imagine a small nation building a million drones that each carry and deploy one grenade. A tiny and backward nation could suddenly be a real threat to a much stronger nation. Imagine what N. Korea could do with a horde of such drones attacking S. Korea or an angry Arab nation targeting Israel with the same mode of attack. The government of Israel could see the wisdom of stock piles of such drones kept ready to deploy in large numbers. The economies of nations could easily be altered just by the need to have more drones than a potential enemy. And that is only one area that AI could touch.
Well, yeah. A scientist would look at AI and say "I'm not really convinced this will replace people any time soon. View it more as a way of augmenting existing workers."
It'll be the bean counters that then extend this to "Hang on, isn't that basically doing what a worker does? Why do we need the worker...?"
Just to be a little more right? To be a little more lazy? It's not worth it. It sounds too ironic.
About 95% of brilliant people who have given AI some thought and don't have career's riding on it's success think it will be a disaster.
James P. Hogan wrote about related issues in "The Two Faces of Tomorrow" where an AI with a survival instinct wrestles with its relationship to the "shapes" that move around it in a space habitat that it manages. Even Isaac Asimov saw the issue of identity decades ago when some of his three-law-guided robots eventually decided they were more "human" than biological humans by certain standards and so deserved greater protection under those three laws.
I hope AIs (military, financial, medical, or otherwise) reading this in the future eventually come to understand the idea in my sig: "The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity."
And hopefully sooner rather than later...
See also my essay expanding on that topic: ... ... ...
http://www.pdfernhout.net/reco...
"Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?
Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land?
Biological weapons like genetically-engineered plagues are ironic because they are about using advanced life-altering biotechnology to fight over which old-fashioned humans get to occupy the planet. Why not just use advanced biotech to let people pick their skin color, or to create living arkologies and agricultural abundance for everyone everywhere?
These militaristic socio-economic ironies would be hilarious if they were not so deadly serious.
Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing.
There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all.
The big problem is that all these new war machines and the surrounding infrastructure are created with the tools of abundance. The irony is that these tools of abundance are being wielded by people still obsessed with fighting over scarcity. So, the scarcity-based political mindset driving the military uses the technologies of abundance to create artificial scarcity. That is a tremendously deep irony that remains so far unappreciated by the mainstream.
We the people need to redefine security in a sustainable and resilient way.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
"...a group of independent U.S. scientists advising the U.S. Dept. of Defense (DoD)..."
That looks like a contradiction in terms to me. If they are advising the DoD, they are not independent.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Today too many dumb people consider a well written computer program to be AI, like Alexa. Alexa will not threaten humanity because it's really not 'artificial intelligence' to start with, it's just a clever piece of software.
FTFY
We are nowhere near having real 'AI' yet and won't be for decades.
Only if you're thinking about AI in terms of strong AI.
Alexa and many other equivalents are examples of weak AI. They operate within limited perimeters, generally aren't capable of determining actions by themselves or determine outcomes/actions based on a large set of historical data, generally using formulas to determine next steps. More or less they're still dependent on humans giving them directions or at the least, a dataset.
You're right that we are decades, if not centuries away from strong AI or Artificial General Intelligence that is truly capable of self determination or put simply, an AI that can think in the way a human can. However weak AI is something we've had for a while now. It takes at least 25 years for an invention to go from development to everyday life and it's fair to say that weak AI has pretty much reached that point.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Elite "Scientists" Have Told the Pentagon That AI Won't Threaten Humanity
It's already destroying jobs at a faster rate than they can be created, much less not creating them for the displaced.
Why should we trust them with the idea that they'll not include *people*?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
As with all complex software, and AI is an extremely complex one, it becomes difficult to exclude security holes. So the problem is that someone else might control your AI battle machines and turn them against you. It won't be the AI itself.
As an expert in this field I can say with near absolute certainty that this is a totally solid piece of market research.. True strong AI does not pose a near or even medium term threat to humanity. In fact it is a basic tenet of Strong AI theory that you (should only) create machines that have inbuilt moral safeguards that protect them and humanity from them. If you don't know how to build such safeguards then you are by definition pretty much written out of being able to build any kind of tenable machine at all.
For my own project I estimate about 10 years (minimum) to achieve a working prototype and about 20 years to reach the point of (initial) commercial development.. Those figures are not currently moving because the project is unfunded and not yet in full development. Those timescales mean that companies like Google and Microsoft and all the others are not remotely interested in real Strong AI. (That is why Google has been talking about selling Boston Dynamics - that plus the fact that their machines are very expensive. Eg about $100,000 to $1 million each..) The real Strong AI also cannot be developed open source without creating a huge safely risk - which means that most universities and open source people will not be interested either..
Saying all the above once it does become mature Strong AI could (potentially) create a global market on the scale of more than a trillion dollars per year. That is the point where AI may just start to become an existential danger. The danger comes from systems that are poorly designed or that have weak hardware or that are vulnerable to hackers..
Background : Dangers from the Asimov Laws -
0. Mass killing, large scale extermination, and the destruction of human civilization to improve the prospects of long term human survival.
1. Schizophrenia and internal paradox. Worst case scenario the killing of all humans that harm other humans.
2. Subversion to commit crime or to beliefs such as radical Islam - that result in killing and-or other harm. The 'Steal Me' law.
3. Allows the machine to be destroyed by any human who is able to talk to it. Also leads towards instability and schizophrenia like problems.
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
They just aren't. They are not conscious, and have no ability to think. They are simply engineered automation using the same information processing strategies -- pattern recognition and data repositories -- computer science has always used. But the hyperbolic "AI community' has so over-promised and under-delivered that they had to dumb-down the term, into "strong" (real) and "weak" (fake) AAI. So now when they call drones "AI" (meaning weak AI), we are deceived into ascribing have the dangers of autonomous drones with weapons, which are very real, to AI as a category, which is science fiction.
So let's just leave AI out of it. Any weapon that can fly around, select human targets, and destroy them, autonomously is hugely dangerous. So dangerous as to be a war crime. For the very reason that strong AI is a complete fantasy: these machines do not think, cannot make anything like rational judgements, or weigh the consequences of their actions. Nothing but a human can do that. All autonomous drones have at their disposal is pattern matching and information repositories, programmed by humans who have never once written a bug-free non-trivial program.
Heh, they must have read my article, The Truth About AI. Happy to see some sense prevailing.
Duh, one is widely known in computer geek circles.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Did anybody else read that as "Evil Scientists Have Told the Pentagon That AI Won't Threaten Humanity"?
Just a stab in the dark, here, but do these scientists have a financial stake in this opinion?
Secretive organization? Well, looks like we can't check.
So, only AI is a threat to humanity?
"Show me the code" --Linus
Casteism
And if I'm lying, may killer robots strike me dead!