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Elon Musk Is Paying For Free Streaming of a New Documentary about AI Dangers (syfy.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the movies-with-Musk dept.

An anonymous reader quotes Syfy.com: There's a new documentary warning about the perils of artificial intelligence out there, and Elon Musk wants you to see it. So much so that he's making it available to stream for free this weekend. The documentary -- Do You Trust This Computer? -- explores the rise of machine intelligence and its possible consequences... Check out the trailer, and then proceed to be creeped way the hell out.... "It's a subject that I feel we should be paying close attention to," said Musk in a news release. "I think it's important that a lot people see this movie, so I'm paying for it to be seen to the world for free this weekend."
Musk attended the premier of the film with the creator of HBO's Westworld, and tweeted Saturday that the video had 5 million views in just 36 hours.

Musk himself is interviewed in the film, warning of the dire possibility of "an immortal dictator from which we can never escape."

6 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. Free? by Peter+P+Peters · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Can anyone ever tell me of a documentary you had to pay to see? How is this news?

    1. Re:Free? by michelcolman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Usually, you pay for them either by watching commercials (which are paid for by the products you buy) or by paying for a subscription to some channel. In some countries, you pay for them through taxes. They are rarely free.

  2. Hidden Inferences by mentil · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just because it's alarmist doesn't mean the film is wrong. I'm most worried about the fact that the creators of neural networks often don't understand how they are operating; as in, why it has the inferences it does. I wonder if it's possible to train a neural net, then iteratively reduce its complexity without affecting its performance, down to the point where we can understand its operation.

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
  3. Bring the AI Overlords by mentil · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Personally I'd rather be ruled over by an immortal AI dictator a la The Culture, than a hypocritical moralizing human (or group of such humans). If anything, it would be resistant to bribery and appeals to its ego.

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
  4. Re:Once again by dromgodis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It doesn't matter what you call it or whether it exists now.

    Autonomous software controlling data and/or hardware exists now, and is rapidly advancing in capability. It doesn't matter if it adheres to any definition of intelligence or consciousness or emotion. It doesn't require self-awareness to do its job. Neither does it to harm you. A bad target function (or a good one from a bad actor) and control of a weapon (physical or data) is all it takes.

    If you want to reserve the words "intelligent", "conscious", "creative" and "emotional" for humans (or extend it to some other biological creatures), so be it. Actually, that would be great. Then we could discuss the technology in its own terms and merits without hampering the discussion by trying to anthropomorphize software and algorithms.

  5. Re:Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, who else? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The "deep learning" currently done by AI researchers, and the type of "strong-AI" in the Terminator, really have little to do with each other. Hollywoodesque strong-AI is still science fiction, and will be for a while.

    Here's some good advice about what to worry about: https://xkcd.com/1968