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As Rodney Brooks was recently quoted: "There are quite a few people out there who’ve said that AI is an existential threat: Stephen Hawking, astronomer Royal Ma

As Rodney Brooks was recently quoted: "There are quite a few people out there who’ve said that AI is an existential threat: Stephen Hawking, astronomer Royal Martin Rees, who has written a book about it, and they share a common thread, in that: they don’t work in AI themselves" [1] [1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/19/this-famous-roboticist-doesnt-think-elon-musk-understands-ai/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/19/this-famous-roboticist-doe...

ericb 9y ago
Elon Musk works in AI--he's leading an attempt to make truly autonomous vehicles.
- shusson 9y ago
  Yeah it's a loose definition, but I think the point is Musk does not develop or research AI directly. He owns a company that is developing AI.
Aron 9y ago
That's gotta be some kind of pick and choose fallacy (availability bias?). Those two happen to be high-status individuals from old high-status science disciplines so they tend to get whatever they say amplified. I wouldn't use this kind of reasoning to figure out what opinion AI professionals as a class have, but I do know there are more celebrities outside of AI than inside of AI.
WheelsAtLarge 9y ago
It doesn't take much AI to create smart weapons. A smart drone can do a lot of damage. I don't even want to think about a level 5, completely automatic, car, which is what tech visionaries are aiming to create. Tech creators look at the bright side of their creations. They have tunnel vision and can't foresee the harm. If they can't others need to. The criticism that Musk does not know enough about AI ignores the fact that he is trying to create a fully automatic car with AI and has experience with its limitations. Yes AI(a catch all process for making computers do things that require intelligence when done by humans) is a process and it has no intelligence in itself but you can say the same thing about C++. It's just a language but look at what's possible to do with it.
- dsacco 9y ago
  I'm struggling to understand your point, because it just sounds like FUD. I mean that sincerely - you're not really backing up your concerns here, other than to (essentially) say the technology is new. Yes, emerging technologies can be risky. But as you just said, a programming language is also capable of a lot of harm. So what exactly are you proposing, and what precisely is your grievance? You're going to have to "think about a Level 5 autonomous vehicle" if you want to convince opponents of your position, because you'll need to come up with a more convincing argument than, "I don't want to think about how dangerous it could be."
  - zekrioca 9y ago
    I am not sure AI is a new thing..
  - blackhawk95 9y ago
    Hadn't there been an incident where Microsoft had a chat bot that started swearing on people after having conversation with internet people. So like that, if say a caretaker humanoid uses machine learning to learn from human and if these robots learn that humans fight to protect their loved ones...maybe the bot could also pick up a fight with other humans for wrong reasons. I think its one way to explain what i felt about rouge AI, its not actually a bad AI, but a bad dataset used by AI.
    - d0lph 9y ago
      There would probably be hard coded rules that could not be overriden by the AI. The 3 laws are pretty popular[0]. 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics
  - istorical 9y ago
    Do you really need someone to explain to you that AI is a force multiplier for an individual interested in terrorism? Autonomous drones are much better killing machines than a guy driving a semi truck through a crowded street in Nice. If AI advances to the point of being able to determine the most optimal path to a solution, and the pre-programmed solution by a terrorist is murder everyone you can find - do you not see the danger that increasingly sophisticated technology poses? Deciding what the solution to this problem is is non-trivial - but you have to be kidding me if you don't see that we're headed for a much scarier world when a disenfranchised person could give their AI robot the command to determine a plan to build the most devastating bomb possible, build the device, and go leave it in the optimally damaging place.
dsacco 9y ago
I actually agree with the position that dangers of artificial intelligence are vastly overstated; that said, this is cherrypicking and doesn't really help the cause of reducing FUD, because it can be refuted with counter examples.
- shusson 9y ago
  I think it's relevant because it seems like the media treat Musk as some sort of authority on AI.
Veedrac 9y ago
Counterargument: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/22/ai-researchers-on-ai-risk/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/22/ai-researchers-on-ai-r...

ericb 9y ago

Elon Musk works in AI--he's leading an attempt to make truly autonomous vehicles.

shusson 9y ago
Yeah it's a loose definition, but I think the point is Musk does not develop or research AI directly. He owns a company that is developing AI.

Aron 9y ago

That's gotta be some kind of pick and choose fallacy (availability bias?). Those two happen to be high-status individuals from old high-status science disciplines so they tend to get whatever they say amplified. I wouldn't use this kind of reasoning to figure out what opinion AI professionals as a class have, but I do know there are more celebrities outside of AI than inside of AI.

WheelsAtLarge 9y ago

It doesn't take much AI to create smart weapons. A smart drone can do a lot of damage. I don't even want to think about a level 5, completely automatic, car, which is what tech visionaries are aiming to create. Tech creators look at the bright side of their creations. They have tunnel vision and can't foresee the harm. If they can't others need to. The criticism that Musk does not know enough about AI ignores the fact that he is trying to create a fully automatic car with AI and has experience with its limitations. Yes AI(a catch all process for making computers do things that require intelligence when done by humans) is a process and it has no intelligence in itself but you can say the same thing about C++. It's just a language but look at what's possible to do with it.

dsacco 9y ago
I'm struggling to understand your point, because it just sounds like FUD. I mean that sincerely - you're not really backing up your concerns here, other than to (essentially) say the technology is new. Yes, emerging technologies can be risky. But as you just said, a programming language is also capable of a lot of harm. So what exactly are you proposing, and what precisely is your grievance? You're going to have to "think about a Level 5 autonomous vehicle" if you want to convince opponents of your position, because you'll need to come up with a more convincing argument than, "I don't want to think about how dangerous it could be."
- zekrioca 9y ago
  I am not sure AI is a new thing..
- blackhawk95 9y ago
  Hadn't there been an incident where Microsoft had a chat bot that started swearing on people after having conversation with internet people. So like that, if say a caretaker humanoid uses machine learning to learn from human and if these robots learn that humans fight to protect their loved ones...maybe the bot could also pick up a fight with other humans for wrong reasons. I think its one way to explain what i felt about rouge AI, its not actually a bad AI, but a bad dataset used by AI.
  - d0lph 9y ago
    There would probably be hard coded rules that could not be overriden by the AI. The 3 laws are pretty popular[0]. 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics
- istorical 9y ago
  Do you really need someone to explain to you that AI is a force multiplier for an individual interested in terrorism? Autonomous drones are much better killing machines than a guy driving a semi truck through a crowded street in Nice. If AI advances to the point of being able to determine the most optimal path to a solution, and the pre-programmed solution by a terrorist is murder everyone you can find - do you not see the danger that increasingly sophisticated technology poses? Deciding what the solution to this problem is is non-trivial - but you have to be kidding me if you don't see that we're headed for a much scarier world when a disenfranchised person could give their AI robot the command to determine a plan to build the most devastating bomb possible, build the device, and go leave it in the optimally damaging place.

dsacco 9y ago

I actually agree with the position that dangers of artificial intelligence are vastly overstated; that said, this is cherrypicking and doesn't really help the cause of reducing FUD, because it can be refuted with counter examples.

shusson 9y ago
I think it's relevant because it seems like the media treat Musk as some sort of authority on AI.

Veedrac 9y ago

Counterargument: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/22/ai-researchers-on-ai-risk/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/22/ai-researchers-on-ai-r...