Anybody remember that awful movie from the 1970s?
"Will computers get smart enough to threaten us?; University’s philosophers, scientists to tackle issue" by Sylvia Hui |
Associated Press, November 26, 2012
LONDON — Could computers become cleverer than humans and take over the world? Or is that just the stuff of science fiction?
Philosophers and scientists at Cambridge University think the
question deserves serious study. A proposed Center for the Study of
Existential Risk would bring together experts to consider the ways in
which super-intelligent technology, including artificial intelligence,
could ‘‘threaten our own existence,’’ the institution said Sunday.
‘‘In the case of artificial intelligence, it seems a reasonable
prediction that some time in this or the next century intelligence will
escape from the constraints of biology,’’ said a Cambridge philosophy
professor, Huw Price.
When that happens, ‘‘we’re no longer the smartest things around,’’ he
said, and will risk being at the mercy of ‘‘machines that are not
malicious, but machines whose interests don’t include us.’’
Fears that machines could overtake humans have long been the subject
of science fiction — the computer HAL in the movie ‘‘2001: A Space
Odyssey,’’ for example, is one of film’s best-known computer threats.
And the Terminator series.
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They're here!
Price acknowledged that many people believe his concerns are
farfetched but insisted the potential risks are too serious to brush
away.
I'm more worried whether we will reach a point where AI can wipe us out on its own. Human leaders seem to be preempting that action themselves.
‘‘It tends to be regarded as a flakey concern, but given that we
don’t know how serious the risks are, that we don’t know the time scale,
dismissing the concerns is dangerous. What we’re trying to do is to
push it forward in the respectable scientific community,’’ he said.
While Price said the exact nature of the risks is difficult to
predict, he said that advanced technology could be a threat when
computers start to direct resources towards their own goals, at the
expense of human concerns like environmental sustainability.
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They sure could! Lock you in and suffocate you carbon-dioxide vent of global warming.
He compared the risk to the way humans have threatened the survival
of other animals by spreading across the planet and using up natural
resources that other animals depend upon.
Price is cofounding the project with a Cambridge professor of
cosmology and astrophysics, Martin Rees, and Jann Tallinn, one of the
founders of the Internet phone service Skype.
--more--"
