3 ms·

I'm on my phone, so I can't find the exact quote, but I remember him saying a couple of years ago something like he "doesn't fear AI for the same reason he does

by r3bl 11y ago

I'm on my phone, so I can't find the exact quote, but I remember him saying a couple of years ago something like he "doesn't fear AI for the same reason he doesn't fear the overpopulation of Mars". And I'm 100% with him on that one. At the very best estimate (the one by Ray Kurzweil), we're 13 years away from it. In reality, probably 30-50. So, worrying about it now kind of feels like a waste of time, doesn't it? Edit: also, in a study by Nick Bostrom and others, I've learned that not a huge part of AI researchers worry about AI. It seems like this sense of fear is mostly associated with those whose jobs are not really focused on AI (like Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking and Ellon Musk).

mindcrime 11y ago
I'm on my phone, so I can't find the exact quote, but I remember him saying a couple of years ago something like he "doesn't fear AI for the same reason he doesn't fear the overpopulation of Mars". Here's one instance of a full quote from ang where he uses the "overpopulation on mars" phrasing[1]. I think that hundreds of years from now if people invent a technology that we haven’t heard of yet, maybe a computer could turn evil. But the future is so uncertain. I don’t know what’s going to happen five years from now. The reason I say that I don’t worry about AI turning evil is the same reason I don’t worry about overpopulation on Mars. Hundreds of years from now I hope we’ve colonized Mars. But we’ve never set foot on the planet so how can we productively worry about this problem now? [1] http://www.wired.com/brandlab/2015/05/andrew-ng-deep-learning-mandate-humans-not-just-machines/ http://www.wired.com/brandlab/2015/05/andrew-ng-deep-learnin... More on that point... https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2zpki0/deep_learning_expert_andrew_ng_fearing_a_rise_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2zpki0/deep_lea... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/19/andrew_ng_baidu_ai/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/19/andrew_ng_baidu_ai/
edanm 11y ago
"At the very best estimate (the one by Ray Kurzweil), we're 13 years away from it. In reality, probably 30-50. So, worrying about it now kind of feels like a waste of time, doesn't it?" I think that kind of depends on how bad (or good) having AI will be. Assuming the absolute worst-case scenario (an AI that wipes out humanity overnight), then not worrying about it because it's only 40 years away seems, in my mind, ridiculous. Not to mention 13 years away. Personally, I think 13 years and even 40 years is pretty "optimistic" on the timeline, but even if it's 200 years away, we should devote at least some resources to worrying about this problem now.
- argonaut 11y ago
  If the chance of the worst case scenario is an infinitesimally small number, then there is no threat. One in a quadrillion, for example.
arcticfox 11y ago
Only a waste of time in the sense that worrying about the end of fossil fuels, or the overcrowding of the Earth, or the risk of having our entire species on a single rock is worth worrying about. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, but I hope someone's thinking about it. And it makes a lot more sense that some of the most powerful men in the world (Gates, Hawking, Musk) are worrying about it since it's on the decades-out timeframe as opposed to months or years. AI researchers are probably more like me, wondering what they're going to get for lunch tomorrow and how to optimize the next algorithm.

by r3bl 11y ago

I'm on my phone, so I can't find the exact quote, but I remember him saying a couple of years ago something like he "doesn't fear AI for the same reason he doesn't fear the overpopulation of Mars". And I'm 100% with him on that one. At the very best estimate (the one by Ray Kurzweil), we're 13 years away from it. In reality, probably 30-50. So, worrying about it now kind of feels like a waste of time, doesn't it? Edit: also, in a study by Nick Bostrom and others, I've learned that not a huge part of AI researchers worry about AI. It seems like this sense of fear is mostly associated with those whose jobs are not really focused on AI (like Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking and Ellon Musk).

mindcrime 11y ago

I'm on my phone, so I can't find the exact quote, but I remember him saying a couple of years ago something like he "doesn't fear AI for the same reason he doesn't fear the overpopulation of Mars". Here's one instance of a full quote from ang where he uses the "overpopulation on mars" phrasing[1]. I think that hundreds of years from now if people invent a technology that we haven’t heard of yet, maybe a computer could turn evil. But the future is so uncertain. I don’t know what’s going to happen five years from now. The reason I say that I don’t worry about AI turning evil is the same reason I don’t worry about overpopulation on Mars. Hundreds of years from now I hope we’ve colonized Mars. But we’ve never set foot on the planet so how can we productively worry about this problem now? [1] http://www.wired.com/brandlab/2015/05/andrew-ng-deep-learning-mandate-humans-not-just-machines/ http://www.wired.com/brandlab/2015/05/andrew-ng-deep-learnin... More on that point... https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2zpki0/deep_learning_expert_andrew_ng_fearing_a_rise_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2zpki0/deep_lea... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/19/andrew_ng_baidu_ai/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/19/andrew_ng_baidu_ai/

edanm 11y ago

"At the very best estimate (the one by Ray Kurzweil), we're 13 years away from it. In reality, probably 30-50. So, worrying about it now kind of feels like a waste of time, doesn't it?" I think that kind of depends on how bad (or good) having AI will be. Assuming the absolute worst-case scenario (an AI that wipes out humanity overnight), then not worrying about it because it's only 40 years away seems, in my mind, ridiculous. Not to mention 13 years away. Personally, I think 13 years and even 40 years is pretty "optimistic" on the timeline, but even if it's 200 years away, we should devote at least some resources to worrying about this problem now.

argonaut 11y ago
If the chance of the worst case scenario is an infinitesimally small number, then there is no threat. One in a quadrillion, for example.

arcticfox 11y ago

Only a waste of time in the sense that worrying about the end of fossil fuels, or the overcrowding of the Earth, or the risk of having our entire species on a single rock is worth worrying about. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, but I hope someone's thinking about it. And it makes a lot more sense that some of the most powerful men in the world (Gates, Hawking, Musk) are worrying about it since it's on the decades-out timeframe as opposed to months or years. AI researchers are probably more like me, wondering what they're going to get for lunch tomorrow and how to optimize the next algorithm.