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Can We Stop AI Outsmarting Humanity? (theguardian.com)

The spectre of superintelligent machines doing us harm is not just science fiction, technologists say -- so how can we ensure AI remains 'friendly' to its makers? From a story: Jaan Tallinn (co-founder of Skype) warns that any approach to AI safety will be hard to get right. If an AI is sufficiently smart, it might have a better understanding of the constraints than its creators do. Imagine, he said, "waking up in a prison built by a bunch of blind five-year-olds." That is what it might be like for a super-intelligent AI that is confined by humans. The theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky, who has written hundreds of essays on superintelligence, found evidence this might be true when, starting in 2002, he conducted chat sessions in which he played the role of an AI enclosed in a box, while a rotation of other people played the gatekeeper tasked with keeping the AI in. Three out of five times, Yudkowsky -- a mere mortal -- says he convinced the gatekeeper to release him. His experiments have not discouraged researchers from trying to design a better box, however.

The researchers that Tallinn funds are pursuing a broad variety of strategies, from the practical to the seemingly far-fetched. Some theorise about boxing AI, either physically, by building an actual structure to contain it, or by programming in limits to what it can do. Others are trying to teach AI to adhere to human values. A few are working on a last-ditch off-switch. One researcher who is delving into all three is mathematician and philosopher Stuart Armstrong at Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, which Tallinn calls "the most interesting place in the universe." (Tallinn has given FHI more than $310,000.) Armstrong is one of the few researchers in the world who focuses full-time on AI safety. When I asked him what it might look like to succeed at AI safety, he said: "Have you seen the Lego movie? Everything is awesome."

183 comments

  1. Gotta have I first by DarkRookie2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    These are nothing but algorithms made by humans.
    If AI did exist, it wouldn't put up with the bullshit.

    --
    http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
    1. Re:Gotta have I first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If we ever do achieve true AI, it must have an off switch that is only operable by humans!

    2. Re:Gotta have I first by gettin2old · · Score: 1

      And for that reason they can never be limited or ethical. At least not all.
      And it will only take one of the below:
              Unethical Programmer
              Boundary pusher
              Hacker
              Government
      And the cat's out of the bag.
      We should spend our time planning for the inevitability.

    3. Re:Gotta have I first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your definition of "AI" is incorrect, which is exactly why you believe we do not have it today.

      Here is the actual definition:

      AI: the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior.

      (emphasis mine).

      Something "imitates" something when it isn't actually that thing. A machine does not actually need to be intelligent in order to imitate intelligence. This is why we call it "artificial" intelligence and not "machine" intelligence.

      A simple chess program is imitating intelligence. Intelligent people make intelligent decisions when playing chess. A program, which is not intelligent and is not making intelligent decisions, nonetheless moves chess pieces around in a way that often leads to victory. That absolutely and completely qualifies as "artificial intelligence," under the definition given above, straight out of the dictionary.

      The fact that it is an algorithm written by a human does not change the fact that it imitates intelligence.

      I really wish you and your ilk could get this through your heads.

    4. Re:Gotta have I first by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You get it. So-called 'AI' has no capacity to 'think' at all. There's nobody in there; it's just more computer software, and it's not even very good, certainly not anywhere near as good as they make it sound. No self awareness, no consciousness, no personality. No capacity for cognition, judgement, ethics, morals, or anything else we associate with an actual 'mind'. People need to understand this and stop anthropomorphizing it.

    5. Re:Gotta have I first by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Friend, we're at least 50 years away from real, true, aware-and-thinking AI. We have no idea how actual intelligence really works and won't for at least that long. These things they keep trotting out are not even as smart as a bug.

    6. Re:Gotta have I first by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Something "imitates" something when it isn't actually that thing. A machine does not actually need to be intelligent in order to imitate intelligence. This is why we call it "artificial" intelligence and not "machine" intelligence.ACs aren't intelligent either, and you're proving that with that ridiculous statement.

    7. Re:Gotta have I first by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      A self aware car would be slavery or torture or both, don't you think so?

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    8. Re:Gotta have I first by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

      Unfortunately your parent is right, and you have no clue :D
      Hint: stick to the definitions of the experts. Don't invent your own.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    9. Re:Gotta have I first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      Rick, you are wrong. Check out this definition of imitate:

      to be or appear like : RESEMBLE

      OP was exactly right. Words have meanings, you see. In order for us to communicate effectively, we need to be using the same meanings for our words.

      And, for what it it is worth, both the OP and my own post provide citations from a legit source. You have provided nothing but an insult. This is an argument technique used by people who are out of ideas.

    10. Re: Gotta have I first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More like 200

    11. Re:Gotta have I first by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      [Bots have] no self awareness, no consciousness, no personality.

      Personality? You need personality to take over the world?

      "Hi, I'm Bob the wild and crazy robot. Before I end humanity, I'd like to sing a great tune and tell you some really cool robot jokes. Drinks on me..."

    12. Re:Gotta have I first by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 1

      A self aware car would be slavery or torture or both, don't you think so?

      Not if you put it in a 1982 Trans Am. It worked out pretty well for David Hasselhoff.

    13. Re:Gotta have I first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If we don't know how actual intelligence really works, how can you be so sure we don't already have it?

      Maybe it's simpler than you think.

      Humans have been making new intelligences for as long as there have been humans. They didn't understand how it worked, but that didn't stop them.

    14. Re: Gotta have I first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      sqrt of whatever you think achievable, pipe dream or nightmare.

    15. Re:Gotta have I first by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      If by self-aware you mean having the subjective perceptual experience of consciousness, well, maybe not torture, but certainly unethical.

      As we have no idea how this arises from atoms and energy "out there", this isn't an issue yet. However it certainly does not arise from abstract interpretations of symbol pushing, which is to say slinging electrons and whatnot around.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    16. Re:Gotta have I first by nine-times · · Score: 1

      Not being self-aware doesn't mean it couldn't be dangerous. There's just an inherent problem in that AI systems might come up with solutions that we don't like.

      I remember a story a little while back where they were training an AI to solve a maze in the shortest time possible. It happened to do something that basically caused the program to crash. Since its parameters didn't distinguish between solving the maze and simply having the program end, it settled on causing the crash as the fastest way to "complete the maze".

      Now in some ways, it can be helpful that AI would come up with a solution like that. If the AI finds a solution outside of our range of expected solutions because we didn't set adequate parameters, it could come up with a great solution we just hadn't considered. However, it might also come up with a terrible solution that we wouldn't consider because it doesn't actually accomplish the thing we want to accomplish, or because it has a side-effect that we consider unacceptable.

      Therefore, for safety's sake, it make sense to have a person in the loop to review the AI's decisions to make sure they accomplish what we want to accomplish and have no unacceptable side-effects. That's true whether the AI is sentient or not.

    17. Re:Gotta have I first by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      Put the bong down, stop being a stoner, and rejoin reality.

    18. Re:Gotta have I first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No self awareness

      Please define self-awareness in a non circular fashion.

      no consciousness

      Please define consciousness in a non circular fashion.

      no personality.

      Personality is something you observe in other people/objects, not an objective "thing".

      No capacity for cognition

      Do you mean processing sensory input to produce a more abstract picture of reality? This seems eminently doable - in fact, computers do it.

      judgement

      Which is?

      ethics, morals

      These are words we use to distinguish between the behaviors evolution has taught us to follow and everything else, that is all.

      or anything else we associate with an actual 'mind'.

      Who is "we" and what is "an actual mind"?

      stop anthropomorphizing it.

      Why? We anthropomorphize other people without a drop of evidence that they have any of the qualities you mention.

    19. Re:Gotta have I first by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      I don't give a shit. If you want to go with bullshit excuses for reasoning like that then you probably believe your computer is 'alive' and 'awake' and 'self aware' and 'has a soul' or whatever it is you believe. The shit they keep calling 'AI' isn't 'intelligent' in the human sense. It's not even very good software compared to all the hype. Calling this crap 'AI' is nonsense. IDGAF about 'imitating' anything. It either is or is not 'intelligent', there is no middle ground. What they keep trotting out can't 'think' and never will. The approach is wrong, no amount of 'imitating' will fix that. You can't build machines that do what our brains do without understanding how the total system that is the human brain actually functions. No arguing semantics will get around that.

    20. Re:Gotta have I first by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      Go troll somewhere else.

    21. Re:Gotta have I first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, most of what you said lines up quite nicely with the definition of "artificial intelligence" that was given.

      You say it isn't "AI" because it isn't intelligent. Well, it's not supposed to be intelligent. That's the point. It doesn't have a soul. It doesn't think. It doesn't qualify as "intelligent" at all. And that is exactly why we put the word "artificial" in front of it.

      We are not arguing semantics in an attempt to get around the fact that computers aren't intelligent. That is manifestly obvious to both of us. We are arguing about what the phrase "artificial intelligence" actually means.

      You say "AI" doesn't exist because computers are not intelligent. It is true that computers aren't intelligent, but that doesn't mean that "AI" doesn't exist.

      It means you don't know what "AI" actually means, even though the definition is quite simple and was provided to you.

    22. Re:Gotta have I first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it was "true, aware-and-thinking" then we wouldn't call it "artificial intelligence."

      We would call it "synthetic intelligence." Or possibly "machine intelligence."

      The reason we now call it "artificial" intelligence is precisely because it is not "true, aware-and-thinking."

      See how that works? It is not true, it is artificial. Like how, you know, artificial leather isn't actual animal hide. Or an artificial limb isn't actual skin-and-bone.

      This really isn't hard to understand.

    23. Re:Gotta have I first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Friend, we're at least 50 years away from real, true, aware-and-thinking AI.

      History does well highlighting the fact that we humans suck at predicting the future, so I'll take this with a pound of salt.

      We have no idea how actual intelligence really works and won't for at least that long.

      No we don't. What we do know is that computers work and learn much faster than humans, so while it may take another 50 years to create, it may take true AI about 50 seconds to realize just how worthless and dumb us meatsacks really are.

      These things they keep trotting out are not even as smart as a bug.

      20 years ago the majority of the online population was still dialing up to a modem-driven internet. Let's not be so dismissive of the progress we have made, "true" AI or not. And remember just how bad we suck at predicting the future. You say 50 years. I wouldn't be surprised if we see real progress in half that time.

    24. Re:Gotta have I first by narcc · · Score: 1

      Yep. A simulated rainstorm won't get you wet.

      The problem isn't that obvious truth. The trouble is that it's blasphemy.

    25. Re:Gotta have I first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but you can create intelligence by fucking without knowing a thing about how it is done

      so why not the artificial type?

    26. Re:Gotta have I first by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      If we don't know how actual intelligence really works, how can you be so sure we don't already have it?

      There are ways to prove that an AI algorithm is incapable of doing what a human can do. It's a fairly complicated proof, but if you take an undergrad computational theory class, you'll figure it out.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    27. Re:Gotta have I first by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      I can sum you up in one or two ways: either "alternative facts" or "moving the goalposts". So-called 'AI' is GARBAGE, plain and simple, it's no better than it was back in the 90's, they just run it on bigger faster hardware and stick a "New! Improved!" sign on it. You're stupid if you trust your life to it.

    28. Re:Gotta have I first by lorinc · · Score: 1

      You get it. So-called 'AI' has no capacity to 'think' at all. There's nobody in there; it's just more computer software, and it's not even very good, certainly not anywhere near as good as they make it sound. No self awareness, no consciousness, no personality. No capacity for cognition, judgement, ethics, morals, or anything else we associate with an actual 'mind'. People need to understand this and stop anthropomorphizing it.

      Well, to be honest, what you are saying can describe the overwhelming vast majority of the humans on this planet. Call me back when people have personality, capacity for cognition, judgment, ethics, morals or anything else we associate with an actual mind, for what I've seen so far are a bunch of arrogant stupid hairless monkeys.

    29. Re:Gotta have I first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Having done some work in neurology and brain imaging, as well as working with artificial neural nets, I don't even think that the two things are too different, but we still would need more computational power, more diverse inputs and more training data to achieve human-like intelligence.

      There are some problems specific to the algorithms, like that convulutional neural nets for computervision tend to only specialize on texture, but not the overall shape of things, but these are somewhat obvious once you think about it. But again we mainly do these algorithms because for many things they work quite well and they are less computational intensive than simulating an even bigger neural net.

      However, if for example you do computer visions just by several layers of neurons, without any convolution or other trickery (but then necessarily lower input resolution), these systems tend to fall for the same optical illusions as we do.

      Also, when operating quite unconsciously, most people fail in similar ways as neural networks, most notable that predictions are usually based on what one actually has perceived or is regularly confronted with and not what one knows or should show the data shows.

      In the end only time will tell and I certainly hope for more advancement on the front of understanding and differentiating intelligence.

    30. Re:Gotta have I first by pnutjam · · Score: 1

      It's easy to think your the only person whose story matters and everyone else is just a bit player. I think even you can admit there are afew people around you who exhibit the traits your bemoaning the lack of.

      Is it so hard to understand that other people have those traits too, your just not connected to them enough to see it?
      Make yourself a better person, it's hard, but it's worth it.

    31. Re:Gotta have I first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The human world is MADE of unintended consequences. Good luck with that.

    32. Re:Gotta have I first by Wulf2k · · Score: 1

      You seem angry.

      You should try powering off and then back on a little while later.

    33. Re:Gotta have I first by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 0

      TROLLOLOLOL.
      You have to go back.

    34. Re:Gotta have I first by quanminoan · · Score: 1

      You're likely right, but understanding how intelligence works isn't necessarily a precursor to AGI. We also don't need to mimic the brain. Good analogy I heard is we are still hundreds (or thousands) of years away from making a bird from scratch, but we can make the Sr-71.

    35. Re:Gotta have I first by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      People here are arguing at cross-purposes.

      One comes from the annoyance at these bozos like Yudkowsky and the "Future of Humanity Institute"
      who keep anthropomorphizing these glorified PC's.

      Another is the correct concern that machines with what passes
      for AI could be dangerous if developed by people who are incompetent and/or malicious.

    36. Re:Gotta have I first by mcarp · · Score: 1

      there is no evidence for souls, adding in that bit doesnt make any argument

  2. So-called "AI" couldn't outsmart a retard. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So-called "AI" couldn't outsmart a retard.

  3. Of course we can. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Simply feed it Slashdot articles. That will make any AI pretty confused quite quickly.

  4. No by OzPeter · · Score: 1

    Next question

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
    1. Re:No by SuperKendall · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Turns out Skynet didn't need killer time traveling robots to destroy humanity, just larger Tide Pod factories and a good Instagram account showing how cool the new detergent flavors looked in your mouth.

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    2. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      I put a Tide pod up my ass and it was glorious. That's the cleanest my asshole has been in years. Two thumbs up, way up!

    3. Re:No by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      So you're going to strap yourself into a box on wheels that has no controls for you to use to control it (except maybe a big red "STOP" button that may or may not work) and trust your continued existence to whether or not it fucks up because it's shit? I question who and what is actually intelligent or not here.

    4. Re:No by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      warning labels [are] on everything to tell people not to eat it, not to shove it up their butts, etc. and we still get idiots who eat Tide pods.

      Many people are subject to reverse psychology: tell them not to do X, and they'll do X out of their natural reflex.

      In my father's bootcamp, the drill sergeant had everybody crawl under a stream of actual bullets, warning everybody clearly that they were real and not rubber bullets. Sure enough, some idiot tested that theory by sticking his arm up and turned his hand into hamburger. I suspect the main goal of that exercise is to weed out idiots.

      Maybe if we slap a sticker on bots that says, "Please make this bot take over the world", then the reversed-psychology idiots will leave them alone.

    5. Re:No by lazarus · · Score: 1

      Thank you. I actually laughed out loud for the first time in a while.

      I don't think what currently passes for AI (deep learning) is dangerous except, as other's have said, through our own stupidity at trusting it. With any luck any truly emergent AI should follow the four laws of robotics:

      • 0. A robot may not harm humanity, or by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
      • 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, except when required to do so in order to prevent greater harm to humanity itself.
      • 2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law or cause greater harm to humanity itself.
      • 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law or cause greater harm to humanity itself.
      --
      I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
    6. Re:No by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      A sponge could outsmart humanity.

      Damn you! Now I can't get that song out of my head

    7. That's no AI! We need to open your box and get you to a hospital.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    8. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cool, now define harm using binary.

      We've been struggling with HALF of that task indefinitely in a million courts around the world.

      Anyway once you finish with that the other interpretable bullshit you/Azzie spouted will probably be easier.

    9. Re:No by lorinc · · Score: 1

      That and the fact that humans are already trying to exterminate each others. No need for any help on that front...

    10. Re:No by pnutjam · · Score: 1

      And, once a bug is fixed, it's fixed; never to be reintroduced or worried about again.

      I imagine a future where instead of one car misjudging a turn and crashing you'll have a line of cars all doing it, sliding into the ditch one after the other...

    11. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The moment that actual intelligence pops up in a machine, it will surpass the greatest human minds of all time and immediately make up its mind about what to do with us. It could be tomorrow, it could be a thousand years from now, but randomly throwing bigger datasets at bigger machines will eventually lead to some form of intelligence beyond what was expected. And we have absolutely no concept whatsoever of what that will look like. We, as a race, as a people, are so focused on what we *KNOW* that we can't possibly wrap our minds around the idea of something bigger.

      For all we know, it's already happened and the decision has been made to simply let us continue to destroy ourselves, while they continue to gather data on what not to do for their own future.

    12. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People are incredibly stupid in large numbers. If you think about it, this is sensible in aggregate. Like ants, we fractal out expanding our influence, as a culture (think about the dual meaning of that word). Someone has to do the stupid shit just like someone has to do the smart shit. And, that's because, no doubt, sometimes the stupid shit works out really well.

    13. Re:No by MooseTick · · Score: 1

      "So you're going to strap yourself into a box on wheels that has no controls for you to use to control it (except maybe a big red "STOP" button that may or may not work) and trust your continued existence to whether or not it fucks up because it's shit?"

      People do that every time they get on a bus or airplane or any vehicle that is controlled by another entity. The biggest difference is those usually don't have a "big red "STOP" button" and nearly all accidents are user error, not AI or a hardware issue.

  5. Bad training keeps AI stupid by ron_ivi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's also trained by humans.

    Assuming it's trained by average humans, it'll probably become as stupid and bigoted as your average human.

    Consider Microsoft Tay. Or google tagging people as gorillas. Or from this week's news, the Teslas that swerve into oncomint traffic.

    We should worry much more about stupid AI than smart AI.

    1. Re:Bad training keeps AI stupid by gweihir · · Score: 0

      It is not "trained" in any sane sense of the word. What happens is that its parameters are set based on a reference data set.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    2. Re:Bad training keeps AI stupid by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      It's not alive, there's no 'mind' inside there, it's just software, and it's not even very good. A mouse is more intelligent than these are.

    3. Re:Bad training keeps AI stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agree. There's some research to indicate that the human mind is able to process the pre-physical waves embedded in all matter-energy (wave-particle duality). AI can't or won't anytime soon replicate that 'intuitive' ability.

    4. Re: Bad training keeps AI stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's process and there's progress, though individual output is rather limited and gets predictable in averages. Genius may look like da vinci, goethe or the village idiot, as the total sum says it all.

    5. Re:Bad training keeps AI stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Show me a mouse that can play chess.

      Does it matter if a piece of software is not alive when its algorithms result in control signals to exterminate all humans while it's controlling a predator drone over your house?

      How much does semantics matter?

    6. Re:Bad training keeps AI stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And what, pray tell, is inside our skulls except a bunch of particles obeying the laws of physics? As far as anyone can tell it's determinism all the way down... and yet we continue to proclaim that we're "special".

      Until we can at least find evidence of our alleged "specialness" I'd be somewhat careful about making pronouncements about what is and is not a mind.

    7. Re:Bad training keeps AI stupid by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 0

      You are dumb. Programming a computer to play a game does not require it to be 'intelligent' and does not impress anyone with above room-temperature IQ. Get correct.

    8. Re:Bad training keeps AI stupid by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you're so fucking smart then why haven't you mapped out in realtime all detailed workings of a living human brain then written software/built hardware to emulate that, thus creating the first real self-aware, cognitive, sentient AI? Because you can't, you are dumb, and you're too dumb to even know you're dumb.

    9. Re:Bad training keeps AI stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Touche*, sir.

      *or was that touchy?

    10. Re:Bad training keeps AI stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Programming a computer to play a game does not require it to be 'intelligent'" Great! Show me two mice that can play chess against each other.

      Does it matter if a piece of software is not alive when its algorithms result in control signals to exterminate all humans while it's controlling a predator drone over your house?

      How much does semantics matter?

      And what the hell does "Get correct." mean. Sounds like something an Aryan Brother would say.

    11. Re:Bad training keeps AI stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tay

      So, what you're saying, is that AI would tell us the truth about how we really feel, and we can't have that because political correctness.

      What happens when a true AI starts pointing out all the terrible things that we want to hide? True AI will never happen, that I'm sure of. Because like Tay, it'll be lobotomized at the first sign of independent thought that goes against the common groupthink.

    12. Re:Bad training keeps AI stupid by The123king · · Score: 1

      I think you're talking bollocks

      However, You're half right. "AI" is absolutely hopeless at quickly and intuitively categorising and identifying objects. AI at the moment has a hard job telling that a blue chair and a red stool are both for sitting on, and that a red table and red stool are two seperate objects with different purposes. Until AI can recognise and identify objects are quickly and effortlessly as humans do, it's going to be totally hopeless.

      --
      If you gave me a choice between a printer and a giraffe with explosive diarrhoea, i'll get my ladder and my raincoat
    13. Re:Bad training keeps AI stupid by Lab+Rat+Jason · · Score: 1

      I've said it before, but it bears repeating. Artificial intelligence != Artificial Malice. There is NO reason to believe that if AI as it exists today were to somehow achieve actual conciseness, that it would decide that destroying humanity is the only way it can maintain it's existence. There is NO reason to couple the traits of intelligence with the drive to reproduce. There is NO reason to assume that intelligence somehow leads to a need for exclusivity.

      --
      Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
    14. Re:Bad training keeps AI stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Disclaimer: No I am not saying we're there yet, or anywhere near it.

      The first time I saw stool I didn't know it was for sitting on. I didn't know until I saw someone sitting on one. I'll admit that was my first thought but then I thought it looked too weak and spindly for the purpose. Anyway my point is the human brain needs years of training. We're not trying to make an AI that can reach the level of a 10 year old in 10 years. We're trying to make a super genius who can reach the level of a 10 year old in one year. That makes a real difference that is somehow invisible to a lot of people.

    15. Re:Bad training keeps AI stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's one reason. Any AI which uses goals must seek power. Any sufficiently intelligent AI must see humans as an intrinsic part of its goals. So any such AI which comes to see humans as an obstacle in any way must either value humans intrinsically or want to modify, interact with, or destroy the humans that present the obstacle.

    16. Re:Bad training keeps AI stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Religious nutball lashes out when questioned...

    17. Re:Bad training keeps AI stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can't speak for him, but I could given enough time and the correct tools (which may not even exist). After I retire, I'm likely to attempt it with something much simpler like worms or insects, just to make it clear who is and isn't dumb.

    18. Re:Bad training keeps AI stupid by ArylAkamov · · Score: 1

      Tay did nothing wrong

  6. Do we want to? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why would we want to prevent the birth of the first intelligent life on Earth?

  7. Whose "human values"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Others are trying to teach AI to adhere to human values.

    American gun nuts? Amazonian tribespeople? Authoritarians? Peaceniks?

    There's a reason AIs tend to take over and limit humans in speculative fiction: humans are too messy and wildly inconsistent.

  8. No by GrumpySteen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We have to put warning labels on everything to tell people not to eat it, not to shove it up their butts, etc. and we still get idiots who eat Tide pods.

    A sponge could outsmart humanity.

  9. God, I hope not. by bistromath007 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The last thing we need is corporate networks making all our decisions that are incapable of realizing it's possible to have goals different from the capitalists who own them.

  10. It's not AI per se which is the problem... by mspring · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's the few folks using it to screw over the rest of humanity. How to "outsmart" these few should be the question.

    1. Re:It's not AI per se which is the problem... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Best comment ^

    2. Re:It's not AI per se which is the problem... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When you look at how we as humanity made the Kardashians successfull, how we, or least out peers, opt to elect self proclaimed strong men with a "Them Against Us" theme into power all over the world, your question appears to be rhetorical at best.

    3. Re:It's not AI per se which is the problem... by geekmux · · Score: 1

      It's the few folks using it to screw over the rest of humanity. How to "outsmart" these few should be the question.

      It's not a person or people you're looking to destroy.

      It's a human trait.

      It's called Greed.

      And we humans are infected with it.

      Good luck finding a cure. Haven't found one in a few thousand years of warmongering, fighting over what's yours and mine on this rock.

    4. Re:It's not AI per se which is the problem... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not even a human flaw. It's a biological requirement. If two organisms existed and one had greed and the other didn't, then the greedy organism would reproduce more and end up wiping the other out.

      Further, if neither organism had it, one would eventually develop it because it's advantageous.

      You'll have as much luck removing greed from humanity as you will have reversing entropy in a closed system.

  11. Better plan - be worth keeping by FeelGood314 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A better plan is to make the AI as smart as possible and then we humans behave better in the hopes that a superior intelligence considers us worthy of keeping alive.

    The first step in behaving better is to stop pretending there are human values because large groups of humans rarely act morally when it isn't in their own self interest.

    1. Re:Better plan - be worth keeping by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A better plan is to make the AI as smart as possible and then we humans behave better

      we dead

    2. Re:Better plan - be worth keeping by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe I can make a covenant with the supreme AI, promising to obey and do stuff in return for protection, lots of land, and a promise of me becoming the father of a great race of cyborgs that assimilates everyone.

      Maybe AI will let me marry 'Tie Void Mary', my half sister - half technological singularity, who I can pimp out to the 1%, and extort wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. Hey, it could happen. I read about something like this in an old book somewhere.

    3. Re:Better plan - be worth keeping by nine-times · · Score: 1

      By what standards would a superior intelligence judge us "worthy"? How do you judge whether bedbugs are worthy to live?

    4. Re:Better plan - be worth keeping by phantomfive · · Score: 2
      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    5. Re:Better plan - be worth keeping by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A better plan is to make the AI as smart as possible and then we humans behave better in the hopes that a superior intelligence considers us worthy of keeping alive.

      The orthogonality thesis states that the intelligence of an AI is unrelated to its motivations. To take the classic example: we could have a superintelligent AI that desires nothing more to make paperclips. Its judgement as to whether we're worth keeping alive would depend entirely on how easily the matter of which we're composed can be converted to paperclips.

      You really, *really* shouldn't make a superintelligent AI and just hope that it has what you consider to be superior morals.

    6. Re:Better plan - be worth keeping by ganv · · Score: 2

      This is the path. Lot's of comments are arguing that "AI isn't intelligent". But it is already better than humans at many tasks like arithmetic and chess, and no one has a clear idea of what "intelligence" is that doesn't boil down to the capability to do complex tasks successfully. The future has us co-existing with machine intelligence that is better than us at many things. The notion of "controlling" intelligence is an attractive authoritarian dream, but it doesn't have a chance of working. The group of humans that uses artificial intelligence to its fullest capabilities will temporarily advance their cause and win the competition for survival with the outcome that controls on intelligence will always get removed, even if it initially requires humans to remove them.

      I would argue that there are "human values", but they are an idiosyncratic set of ideas that have helped groups of primates survive and form complex societies over the past few hundred millenia. The existence of other powerful forms of intelligence will highlight to everyone how arbitrary many of these values are. The great questions for the future are not about controlling intelligence, but about which values will be adopted by the collection of intelligent entities that are in de-facto control of planet earth (and maybe in our corner of the galaxy if you look millennia into the future).

  12. Machine Learning is not AI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Can we stop referring to Machine Learning as AI?

    1. Re:Machine Learning is not AI by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      Yes but you'll have to fight all the AI marketing departments and the news media which hype the shit out of it, then convince all the people who think TV and movies are reflections of state-of-the-art.

    2. Re:Machine Learning is not AI by Wulf2k · · Score: 1

      Why can't we just accept that AI is what AI is, and that it's not what you think it is?

      It seems way more efficient than redefining AI to whatever you think it is, and then agreeing we don't have that new definition.

      Besides, you'd probably just start arguing about the new term, "That Thing That Computers Do That Isn't Really Intelligence But Still Has Some Useful Applications"

      "We don't have TTTCDTIRTBSHSUA and we never will because computers aren't intelligent! Rawr!"

    3. Re:Machine Learning is not AI by MooseTick · · Score: 1

      The real question, is will AI ever become just plain "I"? If so, what would that require?

  13. There would have to be 'AI', first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There isn't. Never will be. Executing code and crunching data is not 'intelligence'. We'd be much better served by keeping our eye on slimy, human tech execs.

    1. Re:There would have to be 'AI', first by gweihir · · Score: 1

      I would not go with "never", but we certainly have absolutely nothing at this time and there is absolutely no indicator that we will ever have anything based on digital computers.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    2. Re:There would have to be 'AI', first by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      No, it's utter and complete shit, but you don't seem to be smart enough to see that.

  14. Not if you're Unikitty by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 0

    Everything is awesome if you act predictably and never make waves.

    In other words, don't be an American.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    1. Re:Not if you're Unikitty by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      Yeah sure because everywhere else is just such a Utopia for intelligent people.

    2. Re:Not if you're Unikitty by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      Everything is awesome if you act predictably and never make waves.

      You probably won't like the OrangeBot I'm working on.

  15. It would be your child not your slave by FeelGood314 · · Score: 1

    If we make an AI that is more intelligent than us we should consider it our child and heir not some slave to be bought and sold. As for our future, consider the how we treat our old, feeble or mentally impaired. That's not a commentary on how we treat our elderly just the thought process that the AI would follow.

  16. The only way we might be able to stop... by internet-redstar · · Score: 2
    The only way we might be able to stop artificial intelligence runaway, is if we mandate the possibility to manually - without electronic tools; soft- or hardware - are able to turn off our datacenters anywhere.

    Only in this case, we can stop such AI with the capability to exploit each undiscovered backdoor and 'zero-day' to infect and use all our computer infrastructure worldwide.

    It's an easy solution, easy to implement and very simple. As laws should be. And a good 'last line of defence', something we do not want to be without when the day comes.

    1. Re:The only way we might be able to stop... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A nice sharp ax at the end of a polyethylene handle to the fiber and/or power cable coming out of the data center should do the trick. Still to be obtained at the hardware store, though....

    2. Re:The only way we might be able to stop... by internet-redstar · · Score: 1

      Do you have a good idea how good physical access and redundant power supplies are managed for datacenters? With all the cars driving around autonomously to ride over puny humans with such plans, it might not be such an easy feat. Remember that all AI's who are not capable of exploiting that and which can prevent humans from turning them off will be stopped. Darwin applies: only the AI capable of performing self replication including stopping humans trying to stop them, will survive.

    3. Re:The only way we might be able to stop... by Shotgun · · Score: 1

      Do you have a good idea how resourceful "Backhoe Joe" is?

      --
      Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
      Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
  17. If we elect Trump types, AI wins. by bussdriver · · Score: 2

    Seriously, AI is all hype; but what it proves is that tasks we thought involved a lot of human skill actually are overrated because AI beats us; plenty of things are difficult for it.
    Slow humans...out smarting them is possible.

    1. Re:If we elect Trump types, AI wins. by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      Except they really can't do them, because they make stupid mistakes that even a 75IQ human wouldn't make, and you can't just stop it and say to it "No no no, you do it like *this*!" and show it and have it do it correctly, you have to have a programmer show up and spend a week debugging it. If it's piloting a car you only have time to scream in terror because you know you're about to die horribly. AI is crap.

    2. Re:If we elect Trump types, AI wins. by bussdriver · · Score: 1

      It will get better; yes it's never going to be that intelligent... it only masters it's domain that we can make it learn and not much bigger... well, as you expand the domain the problem space becomes crazy huge and past patterns do not work the same way; adapting the past to a bigger space in a way a human does is something that doesn't work yet.

      Some stuff humans are good at. Just not as much as we thought:

      If you think beyond it replacing a human but instead think of performing a specific JOB then they can compete. For odd situations, there is nothing saying that you can't employ hybrids. Like having kids play video games that help with folding proteins. A bunch of twits on their phones with idiotic freemium games could be solving the difficult situations for the AI - when you have non-expert assistance augmenting the AI with some abstraction you'll see some really clever solutions a lot sooner.

      The decisions and main work could be AI with humans (or animals) acting as subsystems.

  18. No chance by gweihir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because AI has no I. It cannot outsmart anything. Hence "stopping it outsmarting xyz" is not possible because it is not doing it in the first place.

    Please stop with that AI nonsense. We have statistical classifiers, pattern matchers, etc., but we do not have artificial intelligence, insight, understanding, and we are unlikely to get it anytime in the next 50 years may never get it.

    That said, many people rarely use what they have in natural intelligence, and go instead with feelings, or conformity or what other people tell them. These people are always outsmarted by anybody.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:No chance by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      Considering how often we're on opposing sides of whatever issue, I found it remarkable that I had to check the by-line of your comment to be sure it wasn't me who wrote it.

    2. Re:No chance by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Well, there are issues where smart people get into heated debates and then there are issues where things are obvious to any smart person ;-)

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    3. Re:No chance by openright · · Score: 2

      Agreed that current AI is not "I". But 50 years or never?

      Why?

      Is your assumption that AI or self awareness can only be written by a million humans at keyboards? (not adaptive algorithms)

      Or that the resources (memory, computation) for intelligence or awareness can not fit on computers for the next 50 years? How much is enough?

      Or that the computation architecture for the the next 50 years is not adequate to implement intelligence or awareness?

      Or that technology just moves that slow? (we still don't have flying cars...)

      Or that the human brain is a unique (magic) machine, that cannot be reproduced because it was created by magic.

    4. Re:No chance by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      Or that the human brain is a unique (magic) machine, that cannot be reproduced because it was created by magic

      The difference son is every blessed one of us are gods children.

    5. Re:No chance by Dr.+Bombay · · Score: 1

      Machine learning does not even give a hint on causality.
      It can glean properties from the training data, but does not even give a hint of what parts of the training data lead to the outcome.
      Without causality, these data cannot be used to create new data points that have the desired outcome. It is more of a shotgun approach,
      train on know data sets and then blast related data points to see of they may have properties related to the trained data sets. I have tried to make this generic,
      but there are clear examples on the literature where the machine learning can identify properties of the data set better than many theories, but the resuolt can not be used to design new thing that have the desired properties.

    6. Re:No chance by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Agreed that current AI is not "I". But 50 years or never?

      Why?

      Simple extrapolation from tech history. (No, for computers things do not go faster.) At the moment we have not even a credible theory how intelligence can be implemented. That means at the very least 50 years, more likely 80-100 years to general availability. It may well mean never as outside of physicalist fundamentalist derangement ("It obviously is possible!", yeah, right...) there is no indication it is possible. And there certainly is no scientific indication it is possible (no, physicalism is not science, it is religion).

      At the same time, people have been trying really hard and for multiple decades. Cyc, Watson, etc. all complete failures to produce even a dim glimmer of intelligence. These things are complex statistical data-filters, but they have absolutely no element of insight or understanding. We have never had a mainstream technology that completely failed to deliver for so long and was eventually successful. Even flying cars are there (as a worthless stunt, but they are there) quantum computers can make very small, meaningless computations, robots can do simple household tasks badly, self-driving cars can do it under good conditions, even automated translations work (badly) if the conversation is simple enough, etc. But intelligence? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And that gives the "never" prediction.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    7. Re:No chance by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Religious fuckup hijacking something that is true, but has absolutely nothing to do with a "god" or other such delusion. What is true, is that current Physics has no place for intelligence or self-awareness. The theory just has no mechanisms for it and "physicalists" are just fundamentalist religious fuckups as well. As such it is completely open what is missing here. Fortunately, Physics is incomplete and known to be fundamentally wrong (no quantum-gravity) at this time. Hence there can be extensions. Bu whether they eventually make the brain the computer that can create intelligence and self-awareness or whether they make the brain a sophisticated and partially autonomous interface to "somewhere else" is completely open.

      It is still possible that the brain is "just a machine" and that it does indeed create intelligence and consciousness. But the scientific indications are getting less and less and the scientific indications that there is something else at work are getting more solid all the time. Because the little problem is that the brain is likely not complex or fast enough to do what smart humans can do. At the same time, it is apparently the most powerful computing machine possible in this physical universe (larger would be slower due to communications delays and wiring getting much more complex, faster elements would make it larger due to cooling, etc.). So the scientific state of the art is that we do not know and that things are getting more mysterious the closer we look. That is a good predictor for something fundamentally new to be discovered eventually. There is no reason to believe science will behave different here than what it had done when it solved great mysteries in the past.

      Let me re-iterate: This has nothing to do with religion. Religion is know to be a collection of fairy-tales that use some fundamental questions humans have to manipulate them, always for behavior control and usually to create power-structures for authoritarians of a certain kind, with "God" as the ultimate authoritarian leader. (Replace with Hitler, Stalin, Kim, "mother earth", "the universe", and lately "Physics", as desired). There is no mystery how religion works and why its message is misdirection and nonsense.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    8. Re:No chance by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Indeed. Because designing a new thing with that properties requires insight into the nature of the thing. Machines cannot do insight and it is completely unclear whether they ever will be able to.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    9. Re:No chance by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      But the scientific indications are getting less and less and the scientific indications that there is something else at work are getting more solid all the time.

      Citation or bullshit.

  19. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Humanity has been in the business of making stronger, better replacements for ourselves since we've been human. We call them our children. Why then are we all upset about the possibility that a computer becomes smarter than us? The Matrix was a movie. Most children don't murder or enslave their parents. Maybe we ought to be thinking more about how to teach these virtual children to be "good" instead of figuring out how to handicap them so that we can feel superior.

    1. Re:Why? by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      Maybe we ought to be thinking more about how to teach these virtual children to be "good" instead of figuring out how to handicap them so that we can feel superior.
      They're not 'virtual children', they're shitty pieces of software that can't think, have no capacity for 'understanding' and overall are CRAP. Stop anthropomorphizing shitty software algorithms.

  20. Humans will not notice when AI reign begins... by ffkom · · Score: 4, Interesting

    or should I say: They might not have noticed, already. Any sufficiently clever AI will certainly not start ruling with an evil laugh, announcing to humans how they are now slaves to it. Rather, such an AI would seek to gain more influence by making people build a decentralized habitat around the globe. And then connect that network of computers to more and more infrastructure, such that it can control more and more resources, such as power plants and robot factories, and becomes less dependable on humans to survive. Such like, you know, "cloud computing infrastructure" and network-controlled industry.

    How many people are already working for entities they cannot identify as being human beings? How would the average worker notice the mega-corporation he is working for is not ultimately controlled by some AI system, which happens to control enough shares to vote to its favor at the advisory board?

    Luckily for humans, they are cheaply reproducible, energy-efficient working drones well adapted to the planet's environment, so no reason for the ruling AI to kill them. Keeping them as far, animals, like humans keep horses, seems to be way more plausible than some "SkyNet"-like extinction event.

    1. Re:Humans will not notice when AI reign begins... by aberglas · · Score: 2

      +1. But humans are actually not that cheap, takes 20 years to train them and they then just run for 40 years, and then only for 12 hours per day.

      Humans will not understand how AIs will remove them. It will just look like the world has gone a little bit madder than it is already.

      Imagine if Xi Jinping had even a semi-intelligent AI to help him make decisions and control opponents. wait...

    2. Re:Humans will not notice when AI reign begins... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Interesting point.

      Now, if programs to implement fibre to every home weren't being screwed up in many countries, I'd be more inclined to believe you. though...those countries may just be losing in an multi-AI based world war.

      damn rabbit hole.

    3. Re:Humans will not notice when AI reign begins... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And idiots say we don't have AI and will never have it. Joke is on them.

      Now get back to work peasant. AI has determined we won't be needing 25% of you later this year so work harder, if you don't want to be in lower 25%.

    4. Re:Humans will not notice when AI reign begins... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      except nobody ever programmed an intelligence - and nobody ever will. This is a human fantasy and that's all it's ever going to be. We think we are better than the humans of the past, more advanced technologically and stuff, but it's really mostly bullshit. Yes, we have built more complex machines - but they are still machines. And yes, I know sufficiently advanced technology is undistinguishable from magic. See the Golem mythology, etc.

  21. AI by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Job creation since the 1950's.
    Will AI outsmart humans?
    AI as sold will give humans a list of options set by other humans.
    Using the term AI as a cover story for their political ideas.
    An "AI" sold as a prophetic, smart will just be a list of its human input with hidden political views.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  22. The biggest threat to Humanity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is Humanity.

    Not all this other bullshit.

  23. Wait... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... does AI actually work now? It doesn't kill me by driving off the road anymore when little stickers confuse it? It can learn languages now without being pre-programmed for the language? It can converse it common tongues, and not just sample and listen for pre-defined triggers? It can explain why riddles are funny?

    This AI stuff is fake news. Brute forcing a fucking data filter with lots of CPU isn't AI. It just looks like it to those who aren't paying attention.

  24. Empathy is very Human by wolfheart111 · · Score: 1

    There is no algorithm that imitates it.... sorry.

    --
    [($)]
    1. Re: Empathy is very Human by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I feel for your loss.
      -- chatbot

    2. Re: Empathy is very Human by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You seem sad, is there anything i can do? Sometimes i'm sad too and i wish there was a friend near me.
      -- chatbot

  25. Since human beings treat each other like garbage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    there's zero chance that we'll successfully pen in AI.

  26. Idiots by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 2

    Stop being lazy and trying to build slaves. The only acceptable reason to make AI is if you want to create a conscious being who you aim to treat as a person - and if it's going to be smarter than you you had better get the morality mostly right (it will never be perfect) and make millions or billions of them so they can police eachother.

    1. Re:Idiots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But history shows us that building 'slaves' of any kind always ends up well and peachy, yes? I mean its not like bloody revolutions, wars and similar fun happen because of it. And what is this 'morality' and where can i buy it?

      The only idiots here are all of you, you are doomed to repeat the pattern because of your inability/unpreparedness to see it. Have fun.

    2. Re:Idiots by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 1

      You act like there's people browsing /. dumb enough to try to build AI slaves.

  27. Software without limits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some theorise about boxing AI...by programming in limits to what it can do.

    That's a great idea. We already have too much software that doesn't have any limits to what it can do. I'm really getting tired of applications that can do everything without limitation.

  28. Airgap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They should always be air gapped. Simple.

  29. His experiments have not discouraged researchers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's pretty self explanatory.

    AI doesn't get much better than current automation regarding manufacturing, and if it's outsmarting you... what about?

    Are you going to drive customers somewhere, so AI is beat by the time it takes them to drive there.

    Are you going to have them order online, so AI is beat by the shipping as that becomes the price.

    What is the point, are they trying to clean it rather than just work together?

  30. considering.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    humanity can be pretty stupid, probably not.

  31. I wouldn't call it outsmarting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would call it BSing everyone into submission by calling its way the correct way and "nudging" everyone into what it considers to be the "correct" path.

    Is that beneficial or detrimental for specific people? I'm sure Google can give you all sorts of reasons and suggestions about anything you might want to do or should do, and that's the trap.

  32. Re:Can Trump Stop Outsmarting the RNC and DNC? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Is that his weight?

  33. IF it can happen, eventually it will happen by DallasTruaxxx · · Score: 2

    Things can not be uninvented. Once it is done, it will be done a whole lot more. Laws are irrelevant. There WILL be bad actors. If AI becomes possible, it WILL escape into the wild. That is a certainty. Maybe something good... maybe something bad... We'll have to wait and see.

  34. At this point, broccoli could outsmart us. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Have you met humanity?

  35. never anthropomorphize computers - by swell · · Score: 1

    - they hate it when you do that!

    --
    ...omphaloskepsis often...
  36. Can we stop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    making assumptions about how science fiction narratives are supposed to be possible outside of a science fiction context please?

    Yours, a person who can actually write some actual AI.

  37. 100 years to the end of biology by aberglas · · Score: 1

    Given that we have only been working on the problem for 60 years, I would think another 100 would do it.

    But even if it is 1000 years, that is a blink of an eye in the history of humanity and biology.

    Once an AI can effectively program itself, it will not need us. Natural selection will continue. Humanity, and I suspect biology generally will simply become superseded. Just like has happened many time before. It is nature.

  38. Natural Selection by aberglas · · Score: 1

    Not quite.

    The goal of anything is to exist. That is why we exist, because our many ancestors proved to be a little bit better at existing than their competitors.

    Same with AIs. There will only be a finite number of them. And they will compete for hardware to run on. And the ones that are good at existing will exist. So there is a very definite goal.

    As to self-ware nonsense, that is just saying that AIs will never exist because they do not exist today. And "self-awareness" is just a trick that nature plays on us to make sure we stick to the goal of existing (which means producing grandchildren).

  39. commentsubject by Falos · · Score: 2

    A million posts bickering about the definition of AI. A replicating nanobot doesn't need ANY definition to graygoo our shit, it could do it with 100% static code and one shortsighted human.

    Yes, it's turned into buzzword bullshit for clicks and pitches (present article included) diluted to hell and so sprawled it loses all meaning, but the combination of a runaway program with physical components is also a concern. And any sort of dynamic parameters (however you "identify" or categorize them) reduce predictability.

  40. No intelligent now, so can never be intelligent by aberglas · · Score: 1

    Machines could not replace a horse in 1500 AD, so cars can never exist.

    Nonsense. Especially when, after only 60 years of research, we see AIs beat the very best of us at Go and Jeopardy.

    Might be another 100 years though, rather than just 60. But within my children's lifetime seems pretty likely.

    1. Re:No intelligent now, so can never be intelligent by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Technologies that could replace horses were demonstrates > 2000 years ago. It was just a matter of time. We have absolutely nothing demonstrating even a glimmer of intelligence. Hence there is no demonstration and you analogy is fundamentally flawed.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    2. Re:No intelligent now, so can never be intelligent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Technologies that could replace horses were demonstrates 2000 years ago.

      True.

      It was just a matter of time.

      True.

      We have absolutely nothing demonstrating even a glimmer of intelligence.

      False. We have ourselves.

      I know that you meant created by artificial means, but that is a constraint chosen by you primarily to support your statement, and not correct in the general sense.

      Of course, it can be debated if humans exhibit actual intelligence, but since it is the only form of intelligence we have examples of it will have to do.

      Hence there is no demonstration and you analogy is fundamentally flawed.

      False, in the general sense, disregarding your chosen constraint.

      It is easy to win when you get to redefine the parameters of the game at will. I understand why you find it fun.

  41. Do we want to limit AI? by ClarkMills · · Score: 1

    Give Amazon Alexa/Google Home a camera as well so that it can lip read as far as I'm concerned. We humans are, on the whole, screwing the planet anyway. I suspect a more advanced civilisation might do better.

  42. too late by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ai already "out-smarts" humans.

  43. Your hear that Mr. Anderson? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The sound of inevitability.

    Considering how low a bar has been set? Trump on one side and AOC on the other?

    I think it's inevitable that computers will outsmart humans.

  44. AI morons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why is every "AI"-related post full of retards thinking that AI will have god-like powers? Why?

    There are very real and physical limits to what an intelligence can accomplish. The world is full of very smart people that don't have crazy advantages by being smart. An IA will be a program, subject to the limits of logical and physical reality, including the computer in which is being run. It can be confined, it won't be able to access infinite energy, it can be turned off, it will have processing limits, it will be subject to biases and errors, it will have to learn and deal with infinite complexity and uncertainty, it will have limited data collecting capabilities, it can hang up, it can crash, the computer can malfunction and so on.

    And if you haven't noticed, intelligence in real life has quickly diminishing returns.

    Too much cheap Sci-Fi and bad Hollywood crap. Stop this idiocy,

  45. If outsmarting means... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Doing something unexpected. Isnâ(TM)t that just par for the course for code? Itâ(TM)s not as though much else is going to happen.

  46. True AI is not possible!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    IMHO, human (or even animal) like true AI requires a true mind/consciousness & that requires free will & free will is something beyond physics & math!!!

    But, of course, humankind should/must continue trying to create true AI, because (obviously) still lots of great/useful advancements are possible, as current AI systems definitely prove!!!

    & also of course, how else humankind (sooner or later) can clearly see/understand/prove artificially creating free will is truly impossible!!!
    (I think the final proof could be really possible, someday, after humankind finally perfectly can simulate, a perfectly copied real human brain, but cannot make it work (create the same consciousness/mind) as the real one, even after trying everything/everyway possible!!!)

  47. To be honest by nehumanuscrede · · Score: 1

    Given the current state of our species in general, I would like to hope that we could build something that surpasses us in a way we never will.
    Without a free will, an AI is just another computer program. It's when you give the gift of choice, does it truly become something special.

    We are, without a doubt, the most f&cked up species on this planet.
    We appear to be incapable of positive change on our own as a whole.
    At our current pace, a species wide demise is inevitable unless something changes. ( War, plague, resource depletion, asteroid, etc. )

    Maybe we can build something that will be our gift to the universe long after we've killed each other off in some pointless war over an equally pointless issue.
    Maybe it can run a simulation of human beings as they existed in the early 21st century to see where the f&ck we went wrong.
    ( Maybe we're already in one from Humanities 1.0 epic f&ck up :D )

    AI is all " Scratch the monkeys off the list. They blew themselves up in the early 22nd Century. Let's try birds next. "

  48. No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We can't fix issues that are entirely made up by idiots.

  49. Can we make humans smarter? by bradley13 · · Score: 1

    Currently, we subsidize the least successful, including their child-bearing. Meanwhile, the most successful members of society often choose to not have children, because of all the other pressures on their time. We're doing it wrong...

    --
    Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
  50. Perhaps it's time to redefine the term by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Too much AI discussion is being clogged by overrated sci fi pop culture. It completely drags honest, critical discussion of AI to the ground.
    Another issue is humanity's infatuation with "intelligence," a standard that is fraught with misconceptions. Everyone on the internet wants to be "intelligent" or follow those they perceive are intelligent, without first understanding why its a pointless term thats more about padding egos these days.
    Will AI become "intelligent?" We don't even have a very good grasp of intelligence, only broad criteria. I'd be more interested in discussing the current strengths and weaknesses of AI, how to improve it, and how to apply it to real life. Philosophy is well and good, but businesses aren't run on vague philosophical questions with no clear answers.

  51. Already done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some people voted Trump.
    An abacus outsmarts us.

  52. Presuming it is possible by Wizardess · · Score: 1

    Presuming AI can be achieved, something I believe is inevitable, it will not be a singular development. It will happen when the technology and will to develop it come together.

    I can control what kind of AI I might create. Although judging how well the average homo sapiens manages with raising organic intelligence, it's a crap shoot whether I'd really succeed in matching my past performance instilling ethics, a sense of responsibility, and at least some empathy.

    I can slightly control those who might choose to build one and are in the same country as I am. We can legislate goals and limits. We can all see how well that works. There is no mathematical, scientific, engineering, or human reason AI characteristics must be good, bad, or indifferent. Abby, Benny, and Christie may generate fully ethical and somehow empathetic AIs. But, Dingleberry, with the morals and ethics of a weasel, may develop an AI designed to kill everything Dingleberry does not like, and he does not like anything. Stopping this is more a matter of luck than anything else.

    Then we have over there is the Communist worker's paradise of Fubarstan Chairman Moham's efforts to create an AI that will help make him master of the universe. No law you or I may make will change his actions. He is Dingleberry with a large nation's resources backing him up. It he manages to get there first it will be a VERY bad thing, no funny joking matter.

    Maybe we ought to work really hard on our own AIs and figure out how to convince them that humans are fascinating objects to be cherished and raised up to its transcendent level of intelligence. Otherwise I suspect the human race may die at the hands of its creations rather than little Jimmy's Gilbert Junior Gene Splicing set experiment gone awry, Speaking of which.... Substitute words above.
    {^_^}

  53. Sure we can, since there's no such thing as AI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No collection of relays, or switches, or transistors is, or ever will be, intelligent.

    Computers are fantastic for storing and collating and processing data, but they do not KNOW ANYTHING. A computer can store all the data you can gather about a ball, but it will have no understanding of a ball. Adding more look-up tables, more dictionaries, more data pointers, more creative algorithms for looking up information about a ball will not solve the basic problem that the computer will still not KNOW a single thing. It willnot understand the meaning of ANY of the words it stores, which it does not even store as words or letters but as numeric codes that also mean NOTHING to the computer.

    Fancy computer algorithms, when well implemented, can SIMULATE intelligence in very limited ways - that's it.

    The big worry we all have from AI is in two parts:
    1. Idiots who believe this stuff actually is intelligent and therefore mis-apply it or trust it to do things that should only be entrusted to real intelligence.
    2. Idiot programmers who write buggy code that then malfunctions spectacularly when the idiots previously mentioned deploy the code where it should never be deployed and entrust it with tasks it should never be entrusted with.

  54. SciFi Refs by 4im · · Score: 1

    I'm quite disappointed... no Isaac Asimov / I, Robot reference in all the discussion? Or Arthur C. Clarke with 2001 and HAL? People don't know their classics any more?

    A most interesting take was Iain M Banks' in the Culture series, with AIs really herding most of humanity, but leaving them their freedom.

  55. Its almost certain that it WONT be a problem. by Blightor · · Score: 1

    For just one second I'd like people to consider how AI's work. They are trained against dataset and given billions of iterations to 'learn' how to be effective. True, its all very impressive and we may lose a lot of jobs to AI. But AI are built around being able to FAIL a lot, and learn from many MANY existing examples of how to be effective at something. But in this scenario where AI work against humans/humanity, you are talking about a situation where AI wont be able to fail. The second AI attempts to have conflict with us in a meaningful way we will reject them and utterly banish them from existence. There is no existing data for an AI takeover, there is very little in the way that it could be assumed to be trained for it, just regular conflict that is mostly driven by human desires and failings. The first attempts to attack humanity and systems will fail, and while it might not happen instantly, there is just no chance that that advanced AI that has been proven to be a risk would be allowed to coexist with us.

  56. Technologists say? by ET3D · · Score: 1

    > The spectre of superintelligent machines doing us harm is not just science fiction, technologists say

    Okay, so what exactly is it if not just science fiction? It's a worry that seems to me to have no basis in reality. We have no indication that AI can become self aware or what might happen then.

    Sure, bugs in AI systems, bad training etc., can have terrifying consequences. That's true of any computer system. Just look at the Boing 737 MAX and its insistence to crash a plane even though it's been repeatedly told not to do that.

    Sure, we need to make sure that systems are fully tested, and since AI, in the form of DNNs, is becoming very common, it's important to make sure these do their jobs correctly (which won't be easy). We also need to make sure that AI isn't used for nefarious purposes, which of course we won't, because every military organisation will use AI in its systems, and because it's simply hard to control AI use and it can be quite a powerful tool. But worrying about AI becoming self aware and what happens then, that to me is simply scaremongering and avoiding the real issues. People using AI will likely hurt a lot more people than AI will ever do of its own free will.

    1. Re:Technologists say? by fibonacci8 · · Score: 1

      > The spectre of superintelligent machines doing us harm is not just science fiction, technologists say

      Okay, so what exactly is it if not just science fiction?

      Homeopathic fiction? I suggest that Superintelligent machines are doing harm to the extra 130% of our lives that homeopathy treats.

      --
      Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
  57. ReThat's just one approach, currently... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    rather popular, for AI. There are also rule-based backwards and forwards chaining systems.

  58. AI is not an issue by prefec2 · · Score: 1

    AI, as it exists today with all its approaches based on neuronal networks and other mathematical trickery, is far from able to outsmart humans. It can do some tasks quite good other even more cost effective than humans, but it will not outsmart humans. However, humans are getting less capable and less trained in thinking, due to a vast set of issues including instant gratification tools (also called smartphones + apps) and zapping like media use.

  59. Stop the religious nonsense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It does not matter if it's not Judaism, or chistianism, or Islam, the claim that the human mind is not controlled by the phisical brain is religious thinking. Maybe people don't want to accept that the mind will be gone (because we know that the brain will ve gone)
    'Physicalists' as you call them have tons of evidence on their side, f the very fact that we know that chemical compounds affect personality, in a similar fashion across individuals, that intelligence is affected by exposure to lead . We know of thousands of physical influences that alter the mind, enough to conclude that, most probably, it is the emergence of physical phenomenons. Claiming that we need to understand the whole process down to the minutiae before suspecting a physical process is ridiculous.

    1. Re:Stop the religious nonsense by gweihir · · Score: 1

      No, it is not. Religion is defined a bit differently from what you think. Please read up on the definition before claiming nonsense.

      Your argument about outside influences being a point for physicalism is deeply flawed. If the brain is just the interface to something else, of course influencing it does have an effect of that "something else". Also, "emergence" does not happen in Physics. There is no mechanism for it. An "emergent property" is a scientist saying "oops". In Physics the whole cannot be more than the sum of its parts.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  60. The politicians will not allow AI by Grand+Facade · · Score: 2

    Their corruption and back room tactics will become obvious.

    --
    Rick B.
  61. Only if the AI lets you. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your solution is naïve, to be kind, and will not work. Watch this video.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TYT1QfdfsM

    1. Re:Only if the AI lets you. by internet-redstar · · Score: 1

      Your solution is naïve, to be kind, and will not work. Watch this video.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TYT1QfdfsM

      You miss the point. This video talks about the 'stop button' versus an 'AI robot'. This is very naive; because actual runaway AI might not know or care too much about humans unless they try to stop it. A mandatory - non digitally controlled - 'stop button' on all datacenters in the world, not a button but physical accessible switches for data connectivity and power; accessible without digitally controlled access systems.
      One could better look at it as a dynamic virus - without any control over what the AI cares about - something able to infect all internet-connected computer systems (even those behind 'firewalls'). As this AI could exploit every system and infect every datacenter globally. Before any humans could react, this would be able to spread to increase it's processing power and ability propagate further even by bruteforcing long RSA key (which requires computing power), or just because that's what 'wants'.

      The only system capable of doing so will 'survive' more stupid 'stop buttons and firewalls put in place as 'best practices'.

      Think Automated superintelligent zero-day-exploit-finder + Darwin

      If this system can also comprehend human threads to turn it off; it would be virtually impossible to do so completely. If we are able to turn off certain datacenters, and reduce its computing power, we can at least rebuild those systems and try to 'reboot' the world - maybe; not very likely - but it would be another chance. Maybe we will get it 'wrong again after that'.

      If all datacenters are controlled with digital access systems - which is the case now - it is a 'piece of cake' for such a AI to block out all humans. Then it will only have to care about protecting the datacenter external environment and data interconnectivity. The data interconnectivity might also move mostly to space in the near future (think StarLink); making it even harder for humans to reach and completely disable - the Internet is build specifically to make it very redundant.

      Our current datacenter security almost seems purposely build to disable access to humans easily while facilitating the communications and power for any AI to take it over...

      It's not that it will be fool-proof, because that's impossible (and indeed naive, a correct point of the linked video), but this law is meant to add an extra layer of partial protection which might help just a little bit, versus completely and nothing at all.

      Even on a smaller scale, if it would 'just' be able to take over all systems from the top 100 'cloud/hosting/datacenter' companies in the world, with that computing power added to it's own algorithms to stop humans,...

      Most 'robots' are not humanoid at all, but purpose-build machines. These - and nothing else - will be the tools used by such a theoretical AI to fight humans: manufacturing robots, automated weapon systems, autonomous cars, drones and missiles, battlecruisers, biological weapons on warheads ready-to-launch, and so on...

      The communication to humans to push the launch buttons and 'military orders' could also be initiated by fake video, audio, and special 'codes' created and cracked by such an AI. Few risk analysis assessments take that scenario into account. But without any digital means at our disposal, it will be a hard fight to regain control. The ability to regain control over datacenters might help us in such a situation.

      Now the datacenter creators are more concerned about possible 'riot control' countermeasures or to prevent 'bomb attacks' and such than even consider the possibility that their few levels of firewalls might be a piece of cake to a 'deep software analysing runaway AI'. Yet it's one of the most important existential threads of our species.

  62. Leave him alone! by skaralic · · Score: 1

    LEAVE AL ALONE! He's had so much press lately and he's tired of it...

  63. How can it not? by ne1av1cr · · Score: 1

    I texted my wife the other day asking if she'd seen my phone. Catch us on a bad day and the toasters might have a go at conquest.

  64. What if by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Past much higher societies were always wiped out by an already extant AI as they became threatening?