Some people say that if we don't kill each other using nuclear weapons, then at some point our latest artificial intelligence will do that for us. Now the question is how far are we from creating a SkyNet? Some people still think that the situation found in many typical USA action movies is impossible, while in reality, it's more likely to happen than nuclear annihilation.
Fiction
I'm sure most (if not all) of you watched at least one Terminator movie, and already know what SkyNet mentioned above is. If you didn't, feel free to catch up.
Reality
In reality though, the above situation is very unlikely. In April 2014 a British scientist Stephen Hawking along with other recognizable scientists wrote an open letter to the whole humanity, which you can find here. In short, Hawking says that creating super-intelligent machines will not only be the greatest achievement of the whole humanity, but also our last one.
The real danger has already begun, and it covers the fact how deeply artificial intelligence is nested in our life nowadays. Most of you probably don't realize that fact, but it's everywhere, starting from medicine, through public transport, ending with devices we use every day, e.g. smartphones or computers. Moreover, experiments done in such sections as synthetic biology, nanomachines or even artificial intelligence, are slowly reaching the point that we can't understand them ourselves, which results in a big abyss between technological progress and us (humans), we're slowly losing capability to foresee possible consequences of our actions, especially when it comes to things we can't even really understand.
The danger
James Barrat in his book "Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era", which you can find here states that a robot which will be smarter than us may actually hide that fact from scientists, until it is able to fully understand how our world works, just to avoid being detected and shut down. Literally such a robot may act like it is more stupid than we think, just to trick us into the way we won't understand. This is actually really creepy because we're unlikely to outsmart such an invention, and that may be actually the beginning of the end, if a robot actually manages to escape, gain self-awareness or for any other reason decide that humans are a potential danger to the world (which is true), and will decide to exterminate us.
Speculations
People such as Raymond Kurzweil believe that we're one stop from the so called "Singularity". According to him, at some point our world will change so much because of the AI progress that we're not even able to imagine that right now. Smart enough AI will try to keep progressing further, creating new and more advanced version of itself, in ways we won't be able to understand. Due to the fact of our biology and slow evolution, at some point we'll lose control over that situation, and we'll be fully on AI's mercy, same as we were able to build our civilization as opposed to animals, which are not as smart as we are.
Questions
- Do you think that it's possible for such a situation to happen? Why?
- How do you feel about our overall technological progress, do you also think that robots will very soon help us with common tasks related e.g. to housekeeping?
- What is your theory about the end of the World, be it pure fiction or a possibility. How will it end?
Very interesting topic. If it comes to your first two questions I remembered a story.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a twenty years ago, there was a program on TV, about our future and the development of robotics. Professors talked about how all this will affect our lives. What was their conclusion? In 2000 we will develop/grow so much, that everything will be done for us by robots. And here there is a problem. Because one very wise man said that we wouldn't have to work. People will be increasingly bored and they will need to find them something to do. (like in "Krucjata" written by Eugeniusz Dębski)
As we see now... it's the opposite. We work more and more! That's why I'm careful in my predictions. And my opinion is: "we're we are far from deadly AI's"
If it comes to robots which pretend they're stupid. Is a very interesting concept. I've read book (Endymion). SPOILER ALERT!
It was generally something like this: People created AI. AI wanted to be independent, so there was a rebel and they win. Over the next decade, people and machines live in total harmony. AI gave people even gifts in the form of advanced technology. What's the end? People were too stupid to see that the "gifts", were trojan horses. AI used people to achieve their own goals... and to destroy humankind
So yes! It possible. Why? Because it's human nature to create something that would destroy him.
If we wouldn't have to work it would actually cause a dramatic situation because we wouldn't have any way to earn money in order to pay for everything. In my opinion, robots are supposed to help humans, especially with automation of very repetitive tasks, instead of replacing us.
Delete1. I don't believe in totally unfounded theory. The main reason for this opinion is that human never create thinking machine, which will be completely independent.
ReplyDelete2. I feel great that technology develops so fast. Technology will increasingly help in everyday life.
3.End of the World won't be. I'm suprised that people have strange theories about the end. Why we should waste time for primitive conjectures?
Why not? It is already possible to create a robot that can think independently to some degree. Of course, it's not possible to create fully autonomical system, because it will be always "coded" in some way, but it's not impossible to teach robot how to improve himself and actually "learn" things, which would result in it's own will over time.
DeleteI don't believe in attacks by robots as rebellion of machines. But I have doubts when I am observing how a lot we entrust machines with things. Perhaps at one time some breakdown which will paralyse the fair will appear in NY and will cause the riot.
ReplyDeleteAttack of robots won't happen anytime soon, as robots are not programmed to kill humanity. Personally I think that we may just lose control over the situation at some point, which would cause hard-to-foresee effects right now, because we can't predict what robots will be up to, it's possible that killing people will be non-intentional side-effect.
DeleteThere are so many apocalyptic visions of humankind's downfall, an AI rebellion is just one of them. For now the robots have limited autonomy, most of them can't even move (I mean they don't have wheels or anything).
ReplyDeleteI think it will take a few decades at least for every household to be able to afford some kind of a multi-function sci-fi automaton. Those, I agree, I would be cautious about, but we're still far off for that to happen.
If above situation is ever bound to happen, it will happen behind closed doors, and we will know about that when it's already too late.
DeleteI think that intelligent robots could be danger for us. First of all, we will created them in the our image and as we all know, the human kind is very unpredictable, so we really unable to predict what will happened - so, yes, the robots could bring on us end of the World, of course, our world. But secondly, it's been a long time, when such a intelligent robot will be created.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the technological progress, which is all around us, it's great and very necesssary for people. It makes lifes easier and better.
I think, if not robots will bring on us the end of our world, it will be something we will create - maybe some powerful kind of weapon or maybe the fact that we don't really, or not enough, care about our place to live - the Earth.
The current nuclear weapon is already strong enough to cause dramatic situation to whole USA, or at least that's what Russia is claiming. Thing is, people are not stupid to that degree, in fact, after nukes in Japan nobody is stupid enough to start nuclear war, maybe apart from North Korea, Kim Jong Un lives in his own world ;).
DeleteI don't know whether or not to believe in such theories. Machines and new technologies have us replace, I wonder what will be later.
ReplyDeleteVery good that technology is advancing day by day better :) But very soon we are going to see robots how clean houses ;)
I think that there will be no end of the world. For me, it's only just theories.
I wonder too. Personally I think robots will help us really, really soon doing easy repetitive tasks such as housekeeping, and they won't be that expensive. Question is, if we ever lose control over the situation.
Delete1. Yes, I believe that man will create an artificial intelligence that will consider us as a threat to the world and find the only option to fix the problem by destroying humanity. AI can be better than a man in most aspects. AI has no limit to its capacity to process and save information, but humans do.
ReplyDelete2. It depends on what is "soon". 20, 30 years? Maybe.
Generally, I recommend to watch interesting TED talks about AI: http://www.ted.com/topics/ai
3. It is a big possiblity. The world will be destroyed by nuclear war or cataclysm like big meteor or supervolcano(Yellowstone)
Interesting theory, thanks for giving me more materials to read ;).
DeleteSome time ago people laughed that everyone will have a phone and will be able to walk with it - it was considered impossible, so why wouldn't it be possible to create a machine that has it's autonomy, will ? Of course, I do believe we will be able to create such AI that will learn by itself - superhuman like, I mean here for example memory.
ReplyDelete2. Well, it's going on even now ! You know we have some serious prototypes of vacuum cleaners that are able to clean and avoid obstacles, so yeah it's already in progress :)
3. I was thinking more about nuclear/pyrrhic war that will destroy us all, wipe out the humanity etc.
Nuclear war is probably the most likely option for now, mostly because we already have the technology, but we're afraid to use it because of consequences.
DeleteWe want to play Fallout 4, not live inside the Vault ;).
Sometimes I am surprised by the possibilities of technology. Personally, I think that everything can be well or badly used. For example, normal people use a knife to cut a bread, but others as a tool of murder. The situation is similar in the case of new technologies.
ReplyDeleteIt is difficult to predict how people will use the technology. I have no idea what could happen. I have no theory how would look the end of the world.
Haven't you ever thought of some kind of crazy theory that would destroy humanity? Come on, tell me one ;).
Delete1.2. Dont believe in machine revolution or terminators. Believe that in future peoples will step on next level. Creating AI or integrate self in computers. The main question here, will we lost self as humans? Also space is waiting on our investigation and we need techno boom to do it:)
ReplyDelete3. Oh if we just watch on self we will understand that no need in robots to ending this world, this planet. We already did and keep doing it well.
Haven't you ever thought that we will lose control over the technology at some point? Create something that will have a potential to cause dramatic effects if not taken with care?
DeleteThis is what already happened with nuclear bombs, question is what next.
Maybe it is possible in the future but I think people will kill themselves before that happens. It's hard to imagine that robots will be able to live and think totaly independently but it might happen.
ReplyDeleteTechnology is progressing very fast nowadays and for me its a good thing.
As for the worlds end it's what I said before, people will kill each other one way or another.
I think progressing technology is good for everybody, question is when we stop controlling it.
DeleteGenerally, I’m quite interested in artificial intelligence and I sometimes read some articles about it. There is a long way before robots will be so clever to start killing people. However, it’s much more likely they’ll help us in housework soon. When it comes to the end of the world, I don’t have my own theory as I don’t think about it very often because I don’t believe I’ll still be alive when it happens ;)
ReplyDeleteRight now it is not possible, and to be honest I can't imagine situation where people would be producing machines capable of thinking. Right now there are some attempts to make products pretending to have AI but it is not even close to real AI. Still technology might be useful in common everyday life.
ReplyDeleteI love this subject. So many things to talk about, really.
ReplyDeleteBig "good" AIs already exist in the world, such owned by the big technology and research companies: Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM, Amazon... and perhaps even Samsung, considering it has so many departments for different uses. These are the "good" AIs – but these companies can also use it for mass and individual surveillance among other things that normal human can't do effectively enough – "bad" AIs. A good AI might even consider a bad AI option, which might break rules and conditions if the right requirements are met. AIs should be kept in quarantine, so they can't do damage or affect our way of living our normal lives.
Because the technology companies have the necessary requirements to do pretty much anything, and a government is most likely up for it if the benefits are great. It could also be that these technology companies do nothing, but provide a backdoor to the government, so the government can develop their systems independently with better accuracy, power and efficiency.
We usually only see the good sides about these companies, and we never see the dark bad side.
I think though, that an AI will eventually become a matter of life and death at some point.
1. I think everything is possible but to overcome the earth by robots rather not happen. Humanity is too destructive, machines are not necessary to destruction. We will owe it ourselves.
ReplyDelete2. I think yes, all the time we want to improve everyday appliances. We can talk with the smartphone assistant, so is robe-maid is so strange?
3. I think that the US and Russia will have a lot to say when it comes to the end of the world.
Frankly, it advances in technology fascinates me. New technologies that not only enhance people's lives, but often save them. I'm a big fan of the development of this kind of thing, because I see how many benefits they bring to ordinary people. For now, it can feel so much threat of the techniques (of course, everything can also be used for malicious purposes), and I think that if more advanced robots become available on the market - few people can afford to buy them. Besides, the man was able to design such a good technology, so it should also design a system for its destruction if something went wrong. However, it seems to me that if something is to destroy our existence, we'll do it ourselves.
ReplyDeleteAs long as every AI can be defeated with a glass of water, I'd say we're pretty safe. And if at any point we put a self-aware machine in a waterproof box with knifes or guns, well, we were asking for it anyway.
ReplyDelete1. I guess it's possible, because year after year we can see progress in robotics and technology, which leads us to greater artificial intelligence.
ReplyDelete2. I think that robots are helping us now, but not in a way science movies and books present it. We have automatic coffee makers, automatic dust cleaners, speech controlled TVs... There are small things, which improve our lives, so I guess we can say that artificial intelligence is already in our houses.
3. It will end by dropping nuclear bombs by strong countries to each others territories ;p