5.5 When Will We See Artificial Superintelligences and Superhumans?
91
Google’s Deep Mind learned to play and win 49 Atari video games.
11 One could also
recently read about a computer that passed the Turing test, i.e. it was mixed up with
a human.
12 Furthermore, a robot recently mastered a university entry exam.
13 Some
robots even show self-awareness,
14 and they might build other robots, which are superior. The resulting evolutionary progress is quickly accelerating, and it is just a matter
of time until there are machines smarter than us.
15 Perhaps such superintelligences
already exist.
Some notable people have recently commented on this new situation. For example,
Silicon Valley’s technology genius, Elon Musk of Tesla Motors, tweeted that
Artificial Intelligence is “potentially more dangerous than nukes” and warned
16 :
“I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to
guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need
to be very careful. … I am increasingly inclined to think that there should be
some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just
to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish. …”
Similar critique comes from Nick Bostrom at Oxford University.
17
Stephen Hawking (1942–2018), perhaps the most famous physicist recently,
voiced concerns as well
18 :
“Humans who are limited by slow biological evolution couldn’t compete and
would be superseded. … The development of full artificial intelligence could
spell the end of the human race. … It would take off on its own, and re-design
itself at an ever increasing rate.”
11 Google machine learns to master video games, see http://www.bbc.com/news/science-enviro
nment-31623427.
12 A “chatbot” named Eugene Goostman passed the “Turing test”, meaning that 33% of humans
could not tell whether they were chatting with a computer or a person, see http://www.theguardian.
com/technology/2014/jun/08/super-computer-simulates-13-year-old-boy-passes-turing-test.
13 See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2821132/Smarter-average-student-Japaneseresearchersreveal-artificial-intelligence-software-BEAT-real-students-university-entrance-exams.
html and http://www.itworld.com/article/2720680/enterprise-software/fujitsu-to-build-softwarerobot-to-pass-college-entranceexams.html.
14 See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3165282/A-polite-robot-uprising-Humano
ids-glimmer-selfawareness-apologises-scientific-experiment.html#ixzz3girYdohe, https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=MceJYhVD_xY, http://m.jetzt.de/texte/593752.
15 Armstrong [7], Barrat [8].
16 http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/27/elon-musk-artificial-intelligence-ai-big
gest-existential-threat.
17 Bostrom [9].
18 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540.
91
Google’s Deep Mind learned to play and win 49 Atari video games.
11 One could also
recently read about a computer that passed the Turing test, i.e. it was mixed up with
a human.
12 Furthermore, a robot recently mastered a university entry exam.
13 Some
robots even show self-awareness,
14 and they might build other robots, which are superior. The resulting evolutionary progress is quickly accelerating, and it is just a matter
of time until there are machines smarter than us.
15 Perhaps such superintelligences
already exist.
Some notable people have recently commented on this new situation. For example,
Silicon Valley’s technology genius, Elon Musk of Tesla Motors, tweeted that
Artificial Intelligence is “potentially more dangerous than nukes” and warned
16 :
“I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to
guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need
to be very careful. … I am increasingly inclined to think that there should be
some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just
to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish. …”
Similar critique comes from Nick Bostrom at Oxford University.
17
Stephen Hawking (1942–2018), perhaps the most famous physicist recently,
voiced concerns as well
18 :
“Humans who are limited by slow biological evolution couldn’t compete and
would be superseded. … The development of full artificial intelligence could
spell the end of the human race. … It would take off on its own, and re-design
itself at an ever increasing rate.”
11 Google machine learns to master video games, see http://www.bbc.com/news/science-enviro
nment-31623427.
12 A “chatbot” named Eugene Goostman passed the “Turing test”, meaning that 33% of humans
could not tell whether they were chatting with a computer or a person, see http://www.theguardian.
com/technology/2014/jun/08/super-computer-simulates-13-year-old-boy-passes-turing-test.
13 See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2821132/Smarter-average-student-Japaneseresearchersreveal-artificial-intelligence-software-BEAT-real-students-university-entrance-exams.
html and http://www.itworld.com/article/2720680/enterprise-software/fujitsu-to-build-softwarerobot-to-pass-college-entranceexams.html.
14 See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3165282/A-polite-robot-uprising-Humano
ids-glimmer-selfawareness-apologises-scientific-experiment.html#ixzz3girYdohe, https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=MceJYhVD_xY, http://m.jetzt.de/texte/593752.
15 Armstrong [7], Barrat [8].
16 http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/27/elon-musk-artificial-intelligence-ai-big
gest-existential-threat.
17 Bostrom [9].
18 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540.