Utter drivel?

[paul]

A good article, pwhole, but I don't think anything will be done - too much money has been sunk into AI for those who have that money to back down.

I used to think our defence against a rouge AI was that it couldn't affect the physical world unless it was programmed to, and if that happened we could switch it off. That's not true now - AI is already influencing opinion and elections, possibly in ways that nobody is aware of, and developments in military AI and automation mean it's only a matter of time before an AI hacks a networked drone fleet.

Obviously there will be a lot of misreporting and panic-mongering on AI in the media just as there was with the Millenium Bug (planes dropping out of the sky, nuclear power stations blowing up, etc.). The Millenium Bug issue was certainly real but those in IT managed the issues before time and no major problems surfaced. Recent developments in AI though have been reported as being able to re-spawn the process when it is stopped for some unwanted reason, probably under control so that there is an option to stop this happening in order to shut it down - but who knows?

 

[ChrisB]

The IT community were able to kill the Millennium Bug because everybody agreed it might be a threat (it was a benefit to nobody), and nobody was making money from it. Neither is true for AI.

 

[JasonC]

In a 1999 novel, David Mitchell envisages an all-powerful - but benevolent - AI (Ghostwritten), which ought to be reassuring, but isn't, really. Great book, though