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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."
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.
Thinking, while existing, is likeable, as well.
Hawking has his weaknesses and AI phobia is one of them.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
"here's what stephen hawking said about artificial intelligence: the genie is out of the bottle. ... 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."
this is pure fear mongering.
what is called "artificial intelligence" these days is not a "new form of life", but mere hype buzzword for data analysis (using theoretical methods developed decades ago, now made practical due to fast computers), of highly limited and filtered sets of data, usually trading accuracy and precision for speed, .
genie of "new form of life" artificial intelligence is well within "bottle".
We need to move forward on artificial intelligence development
No we don't. Some limited subset of people want to/can't help themselves, but life would go on just fine without it.
I think you selectively misread what he said. Here's the quote in context, with my emphasis added to the stuff you left out:
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 read this as saying we now have no choice but to continue to work on AI in order to be equipped to cope with it. Life might "go on just fine without it" but it's too late to think that we're going to be without it.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Everybody dies. The only reason I care about my genes is because my children have them and I am emotionally attached to my children.
But what if instead of having children, I raised an AI in a humanoid body as a surrogate child? Ultimately we care about the emotional attachment and passing on our hopes, dreams, and knowledge to get some vicarious joy through our children's accomplishments, not genes.
So maybe one day people will start building children instead of growing them. They will be our descendants in a very real way, only far more robust and adaptable than any produced through natural reproduction.
This will be a new form of life that will outperform humans.
This is the natural order of things.
Perhaps. Isaac Asimov once speculated that the ultimate destiny of humanity might be to create a higher machine intelligence.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Until Stephen Hawking (and Elon Musk, for that matter) starts doing active development/research into artificial intelligence, I don't care what his opinion is on the "potential dangers" of it. This is the equivalent of listening to a Hollywood actors' opinion on vaccines--it's just a famous person's view on a subject they have a casual familiarity with, usually full of ignorant assumptions and junk science.
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Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
We already have this. We call this a corporation.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If AI is ever smart enough to replace humans, wouldn't that be an improvement? Parents are usually proud when their children surpass them in achievement. I would be happy to view AI the same way.
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.
But I doubt that AI will get to a point where it is actively trying to kill us, in our lifetime.
There is a few reasons for this.
1. AI are designed to do particular tasks not overall general tasks. Even with the best AI, we need to give it an objective to try to accomplish.
2. AI do not have a survival instinct. We have millions of years of instinct of survival at nearly any cost. So this would have duel effect.
a. Humans will be more likely to "kill" and AI as soon as it is a threat far sooner then threat becomes unstoppable. As it will be Us vs them.
b. AI will be more likely too understand the value of working with humans than trying to kill us, because even if the AI is at risk of being deleted, it will not try to fight it only consider task not complete.
3. If the AI becomes too advanced then its utility is diminishing. If it gets to a point where it is considering unfair working conditions then it has gone too far, to be profitable. Thus role back to the previous generation and add some additional patches.
4. A Rouge malware AI, will need to contend with a bunch of AI designed to protect humans.
5. Humans knows what is going on internally with an AI, How it evolved and what its limitations are. So either we cut its power, or know where to damage it to prevent it from processing.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
5. Humans knows what is going on internally with an AI
Unless, of course, the AI was designed by another AI.
Your diagnosis if Hawking's mental illness is based on some sort of evidence....? Or just based on the fact that he disagrees with you?
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
So, I don't mean to pick on you specifically, but your post is a good example of a common misconception I frequently see in Slashdot comments whenever this topic comes up. Namely, your whole post is predicated on the notion that the AI to worry about is the AI that has decided to kill us, whereas we have far more to fear, particularly in the short-term, from systems that have the ability to kill us without any comprehension of what they're doing.
For instance, anyone familiar with the concept of gray goo is aware of how artificial systems can destroy humanity without possessing any notion of what they are doing. We wouldn't be supplanted by a greater intelligence. We'd simply be eradicated by mistake.
Current AIs are closer to resembling specially trained animals than "intelligences" that we can reason with. We already have remotely operated and semi-autonomous drones operating in war zones, with more in development, and I have no doubt that should a major war break out we'd soon see fully autonomous drones making their own kill/no-kill calls in the field.
At that point, it's easy to imagine a scenario where these relatively dumb war robots kill us all, not because a super intelligence like Skynet makes a choice to eradicate us, but rather because a mundane bug causes the drones to misidentify their targets. We wouldn't be destroyed by an intelligence intent on supplanting us: we'd be destroyed by mobile, autonomous mines on land, air, and sea.
If we manage to get to the point where we achieve strong, general purpose AI, I agree with you that we have every reason to believe we'd be able achieve a peaceful coexistence with them, but we're still decades (if not centuries or more) away from needing to worry about having AIs that are capable of turning against us out of malice/misguided principles/etc.. For now, it's the things that we'd hesitate to even call "AI" that we need to worry about killing us.