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Stephen Hawking: 'I Fear AI May Replace Humans Altogether' (wired.co.uk)
dryriver writes: Wired magazine recently asked physicist Stephen Hawking what he thinks of everything from AI to the Anti Science Movement. One of the subjects touched on was the control large corporations have over information in the 21st Century. In Hawking's own words: "I worry about the control that big corporations have over information. The danger is we get into the situation that existed in the Soviet Union with their papers, Pravda, which means "truth" and Izvestia, which means "news". The joke was, there was no truth in Pravda and no news in Izvestia. Corporations will always promote stories that reflect well on them and suppress those that don't." And since this is Slashdot, here's what Stephen Hawking said about Artificial Intelligence: "The genie is out of the bottle. We need to move forward on artificial intelligence development but we also need to be mindful of its very real dangers. I fear that AI may replace humans altogether. If people design computer viruses, someone will design AI that replicates itself. This will be a new form of life that will outperform humans."
I would imagine that for most of us alive right now that our existence is only temporary whether we ever develop sophisticated AI or not. I suspect most of us would strongly prefer a choice to transfer our consciousness to an AI as there's not much guarantee of continued existence outside of that at this point.
Any advanced AI would be far better at running things than people. For all we know it might like to keep us around as pets. A sheltered existence with some pampering, exercise, and the occasional treat seems like an absolute bargain for most of the people currently living on the planet.
Because existing is nice. One likes being around. A lot of people who have thought carefully about this are concerned. Last I checked, most people like existing.
We all exist now and will cease to exist someday... Depending on your belief system, there either is or isn't anything after you cease. You simply stop being in the configuration you're in now. However, the majority of the particles that comprise you were other people/animals/objects at one point and they will be again in the future (save the small % of particles that end up escaping in to space as photons or such).
AI replacing Humans doesn't 100% mean it would replace the existence of a sentient being and people that don't yet exist have no thoughts one way or another about the topic.
We replaced the Hominids that came before us, like they the ones before them and so on and so on back to the first true life on the planet.
There's also nothing to say that like Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals intermingling, that Humans and AI won't do the same and while we in our present form would get replaced.. So too would AI in its current form and an entirely new and evolved form of life on this planet would dawn.. But, how is that any different than what's been happening for untold years?