Sir Tim Berners-Lee Lays Out Nightmare Scenario Where AI Runs the Financial World (techworld.com)

The architect of the world wide web Sir Tim Berners-Lee has talked about some of his concerns for the internet over the coming years, including a nightmarish scenario where artificial intelligence (AI) could become the new 'masters of the universe' by creating and running their own companies. From an article: Masters of the universe is a reference to Tom Wolfe's 1987 novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, regarding the men (and they were men) who started racking up multi-million dollar salaries and a great deal of influence from their finance roles on Wall Street and in London during the computerised trading boom pre-Black Monday. Berners-Lee said, "So when AI starts to make decisions such as who gets a mortgage, that's a big one. Or which companies to acquire and when AI starts creating its own companies, creating holding companies, generating new versions of itself to run these companies. So you have survival of the fittest going on between these AI companies until you reach the point where you wonder if it becomes possible to understand how to ensure they are being fair, and how do you describe to a computer what that means anyway?"

Comments

And the differnce is?

[king neckbeard]

So, the financial industry will be controlled by heartless automatons, but now they will make intelligent, logical decisions? Seems like a net gain.

Also, MOTU is a reference to He-Man.

Chinese Wall

[Stargoat]

Nightmare scenario for traders, benefit for everyone else. The AI likely would have Chinese walls built into them to prevent collusion and insider trading. I for one look forward to my innately honest (and auditable/examinable) AI masters