To your list of TV and movie AI plots, I'd add the novel, "Colossus." Now, it's a typical story of a machine accumulating knowledge to the point that it decides to rule mankind. When it was published in 1966, though, it was a fairly new concept. And very scary. Still is.
I am wondering if any of the commentators here actually have any knowedge of machine learning beyond what is seen in the press or on social media. The fact that 350 people signed a letter calling for a moratorium on AI research reminds me of the story about over 100 physicists signing a letter in 1905 saying that Einstein's special theory of relativity was wrong. I strongly suggest viewing the lecture given by Caltech professor Yaser Abu Mostafa last Thursday on "AI: The good, the bad and the ugly". It, along with his undergraduate level ML course, can be found on YouTube. And yes, I took that course, and yes, I have actually used ML on real data. Also yes to the Kruger-Dunning syndrome.
AI POSES RISK OF EXTINCTION, TECH LEADERS WARN IN OPEN LETTER. HERE'S WHY ALARM IS SPREADING by Josh Meyer / USA TODAY 053123
Hundreds of scientists, tech industry execs and public figures - including leaders of Google, Microsoft and ChatGPT - are sounding the alarm about artificial intelligence, writing in a new public statement that fast-evolving AI technology could create as high a risk of killing off humankind as nuclear war and COVID-like pandemics. [Statement and Signatories is available at https://www.safe.ai/statement-on-ai-risk#open-letter ]
"MITIGATING THE RISK OF EXTINCTION FROM AI SHOULD BE A GLOBAL PRIORITY ALONGSIDE OTHER SOCIETAL-SCALE RISKS SUCH AS PANDEMICS AND NUCLEAR WAR," said the one-sentence statement, which was released by the Center for AI Safety, or CAIS, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization.
CAIS said it released the statement as a way of encouraging AI experts, journalists, policymakers, and the public to talk more about urgent risks relating to artificial intelligence.
Among the 350 signatories of the public statement were executives from the top four AI firms, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Microsoft and Anthropic. One of them is renowned researcher and “Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton, who quit his job as a vice president of Google last month so he could speak freely of the dangers of a technology he helped develop.
Also signing the statement: Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, the firm behind the popular conversation bot ChatGPT, which has made AI accessible to millions of users and allowed them to pose questions to it. Demis Hassabis, who heads Google’s AI division, also signed the statement.
Altman, Hinton and other industry leaders have become increasingly vocal about their concerns about AI and the need for some kind of technological guardrails for it, including government regulation.
Well, the drones are still guided - for the time being - right? Yeah, "Regards to Captain Dunsell" (sic) for the human race. Slogan: "A Cleaner War: No Human Meddling." I would imagine they'd love it inside The Pentagram: "Hey, it wasn't us. It was the machines." Robot Chief-of-Staff counters, "Just doing our job, folks."
(Remember the words of agent Smith: "Never send a human to do a machine's job.")
AI as it now stands is a just massive search engine with a speech simulator added on top. It is not going to do anything other than help college kids and lawyers write crappy reports and legal briefs. Now if the DoD hooks one up to our nuclear arsenal, then yeah, we are doomed. So it really all depends on what us humans (or more precisely the things that claim to be human who are running The Blob) decide to hook AI systems up to. If you hook them up to air traffic control, expect some fireworks. If you just let people type in stupid questions, then not much happens at all.
We humans are always trying to get an edge, an advantage, for power and profit. The question is how far we will go in a future that simply can't be predicted.
I think that the current surge is a market thing, NASDAQ has been down, and VC has been hesitant to invest further. So voila! AI is now suddenly better and everyone wants to dump money on it again. I think it is all marketing right now. It will be years before anything like reliable, accurate and comprehensive AI is available. At that point we can start to worry about what negative uses it will be applied to by the virtue-less egomaniacs in charge. Let's just hope they don't hook the current versions up to anything kinetic.
To your list of TV and movie AI plots, I'd add the novel, "Colossus." Now, it's a typical story of a machine accumulating knowledge to the point that it decides to rule mankind. When it was published in 1966, though, it was a fairly new concept. And very scary. Still is.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_(novel)
Add to that the idea of the Singularity, and we're getting into really frightening territory.
https://bigthink.com/the-future/ray-kurzweil-singularity/
I, for one, find AI advances very concerning.
Colossus: The Forbin Project. Starring Eric Braeden and Susan Clark. One of my favorite sci-fi movies.
Yes, I read that it had been made into a movie. Sounds as if it's worth scoping out.
I read the book as an assignment in my college sci-fi/fantasy class. Now, THAT was a cool course!
I am wondering if any of the commentators here actually have any knowedge of machine learning beyond what is seen in the press or on social media. The fact that 350 people signed a letter calling for a moratorium on AI research reminds me of the story about over 100 physicists signing a letter in 1905 saying that Einstein's special theory of relativity was wrong. I strongly suggest viewing the lecture given by Caltech professor Yaser Abu Mostafa last Thursday on "AI: The good, the bad and the ugly". It, along with his undergraduate level ML course, can be found on YouTube. And yes, I took that course, and yes, I have actually used ML on real data. Also yes to the Kruger-Dunning syndrome.
AI POSES RISK OF EXTINCTION, TECH LEADERS WARN IN OPEN LETTER. HERE'S WHY ALARM IS SPREADING by Josh Meyer / USA TODAY 053123
Hundreds of scientists, tech industry execs and public figures - including leaders of Google, Microsoft and ChatGPT - are sounding the alarm about artificial intelligence, writing in a new public statement that fast-evolving AI technology could create as high a risk of killing off humankind as nuclear war and COVID-like pandemics. [Statement and Signatories is available at https://www.safe.ai/statement-on-ai-risk#open-letter ]
"MITIGATING THE RISK OF EXTINCTION FROM AI SHOULD BE A GLOBAL PRIORITY ALONGSIDE OTHER SOCIETAL-SCALE RISKS SUCH AS PANDEMICS AND NUCLEAR WAR," said the one-sentence statement, which was released by the Center for AI Safety, or CAIS, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization.
CAIS said it released the statement as a way of encouraging AI experts, journalists, policymakers, and the public to talk more about urgent risks relating to artificial intelligence.
Among the 350 signatories of the public statement were executives from the top four AI firms, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Microsoft and Anthropic. One of them is renowned researcher and “Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton, who quit his job as a vice president of Google last month so he could speak freely of the dangers of a technology he helped develop.
Also signing the statement: Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, the firm behind the popular conversation bot ChatGPT, which has made AI accessible to millions of users and allowed them to pose questions to it. Demis Hassabis, who heads Google’s AI division, also signed the statement.
Altman, Hinton and other industry leaders have become increasingly vocal about their concerns about AI and the need for some kind of technological guardrails for it, including government regulation.
Continued at https://www.safe.ai/statement-on-ai-risk#open-letter ; EMPHASIS added.
Never a word about Asimov's "Laws of Robotics."
Will the robots obey their betters' "laws"? Will humans even use Asimov's laws?
Think of killer robots and drones -- obviously not what Asimov had in mind!
Well, the drones are still guided - for the time being - right? Yeah, "Regards to Captain Dunsell" (sic) for the human race. Slogan: "A Cleaner War: No Human Meddling." I would imagine they'd love it inside The Pentagram: "Hey, it wasn't us. It was the machines." Robot Chief-of-Staff counters, "Just doing our job, folks."
(Remember the words of agent Smith: "Never send a human to do a machine's job.")
It's interesting. Yes, there are still "humans in the loop" with those drones.
But, as I understand it, target recognition, at least in part, is based on (or evaluated by) computer models/algorithms.
Maybe someday the computers will simply cut humans out of the loop as so many "Captain Dunsels."
AI as it now stands is a just massive search engine with a speech simulator added on top. It is not going to do anything other than help college kids and lawyers write crappy reports and legal briefs. Now if the DoD hooks one up to our nuclear arsenal, then yeah, we are doomed. So it really all depends on what us humans (or more precisely the things that claim to be human who are running The Blob) decide to hook AI systems up to. If you hook them up to air traffic control, expect some fireworks. If you just let people type in stupid questions, then not much happens at all.
I hope you're right.
We humans are always trying to get an edge, an advantage, for power and profit. The question is how far we will go in a future that simply can't be predicted.
I think that the current surge is a market thing, NASDAQ has been down, and VC has been hesitant to invest further. So voila! AI is now suddenly better and everyone wants to dump money on it again. I think it is all marketing right now. It will be years before anything like reliable, accurate and comprehensive AI is available. At that point we can start to worry about what negative uses it will be applied to by the virtue-less egomaniacs in charge. Let's just hope they don't hook the current versions up to anything kinetic.