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Google's AI Boss Blasts Musk's Scare Tactics on Machine Takeover (bloomberg.com)
Mark Bergen, writing for Bloomberg: Elon Musk is the most-famous Cassandra of artificial intelligence. The Tesla chief routinely drums up the technology's risks in public and on Twitter, where he recently called the global race to develop AI the "most likely cause" of a third world war. Researchers at Google, Facebook and other AI-focused companies find this irritating. John Giannandrea, the head of search and AI at Alphabet's Google, took one of the clearest shots at Musk on Tuesday -- all while carefully leaving him unnamed. "There's a huge amount of unwarranted hype around AI right now," Giannandrea said at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco. "This leap into, 'Somebody is going to produce a superhuman intelligence and then there's going to be all these ethical issues' is unwarranted and borderline irresponsible."
Most blowhards who claim to have a crystal ball turn out wrong.
While I don't doubt AI may pose a threat to humanity in the distant future, our current AI completely lacks everyday common sense. It's great at pattern matching now that we have fat hardware to throw at matching, but pattern matching alone can't cover for common sense. Hopping the common-sense hurdle could be centuries or millennia away. Stupid humans with war machines are a far more immediate threat.
Table-ized A.I.
Too many people, like Musk, are primarily worried about an AI taking over the world more or less directly. This is a somewhat unlikely possibility that requires major advancements in AI.
What they should actually be worried about is AI-powered hyper-inequality and mass unemployment. This is a near-certain possibility that the technology is already mature enough for. If killbots ever roam the streets because of developments in AI, it'll be human beings ordering them around all on their own, the AI will just be making those people very rich and independent.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Musk is a visionary in every sense of the word. The thing about being a visionary is that its a double-edged sword.
Visionaries tend to completely buy into really crazy notions that are usually completely wrong. But, every so often, one of their crazy notions turns out to be right.
Sure we'll adapt. Maybe nobody will die, maybe 100m will die. That's not really clear until we know the details of how we end up adapting. I suspect if we don't carefully plan how to adapt that it will be the later path.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Musk is not a visionary. Nothing he's done is revolutionary. Space flight and subways are both pretty old technology. He's just another relatively smart guy who is good at self promotion.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Most blowhards who claim to have a crystal ball turn out wrong. While I don't doubt AI may pose a threat to humanity in the distant future, our current AI completely lacks everyday common sense. It's great at pattern matching now that we have fat hardware to throw at matching, but pattern matching alone can't cover for common sense. Hopping the common-sense hurdle could be centuries or millennia away. Stupid humans with war machines are a far more immediate threat.
Meh, we're far away from the Cuban missile crisis, even with NK making a lot of noise. The real threat is that most of the world is making zero progress on democracy and freedom. In 2006 the Democracy Index was at 5.52, in 2016 it's still at 5.52. The "Freedom in the World" index has been pretty much flat since 2000. Authoritarian regimes like China and Russia sit solid as rock, with dissidents and malcontent quickly suppressed and propaganda filling both regular media and social media. The Arab spring has pretty much failed except for Tunisia and Turkey is well on the way back to the dark ages under Erdogan. So far the free nations have mostly stayed free, but I fear the trend will reverse as civil liberties are handed over in the name of protection from terrorism, anti-crime, anti-corruption and so on.
All it takes is one populist or "strong leader" and the right circumstances like McCarthyism and they'll get their clammy hands on power and not let go. That pattern matching will gobble up your Facebook data, private and public and probably figure you out better than yourself. Look at that recent "gaydar" story where the computer can spot it better than humans. And you don't have to be taken by the secret police and thrown in a cell, all it takes is to tilt the board a little. Most people will scramble to appear to be loyal subjects, even if it's just for show. But that's kinda the point, if you think everyone is watched and everyone else is resigned and it is hopeless then it'll fail. Maintaining an authoritarian regime is about snuffing out the fires while they're tiny or even before they start, so the masses never join them. And Big Data is much worse than Orwell could imagine.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings