Time to tap the brakes on Artificial Intelligence?

[Multicolored Lemur]

AI experts are increasingly afraid of what they’re creating

AI gets smarter, more capable, and more world-transforming every day. Here’s why that might not be a good thing.

www.vox.com

“In a summer 2022 survey of machine learning researchers, the median respondent thought that AI was more likely to be good than bad but had a genuine risk of being catastrophic. Forty-eight percent of respondents said they thought there was a 10 percent or greater chance that the effects of AI would be “extremely bad (e.g., human extinction).”

Ouch.

This is concerning. No question.

And I put this in our foreign policy category because this is an international issue. Tech is a major industry and countries want their companies to be successful. And they don’t want their companies to be hamstrung by “unnecessary” regulations.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

Good topic. I've heard the similar concerns about human cloning or even mixing of DNA to create hybrids. I always wondered why mankind does this, and it is probably because if we can, and we're curious about it, then someone will eventually do it.

I think we've already seen the negative effects of AI when it comes to Twitter bots that are able to engage on conversation.

Microsoft Created a Twitter Bot to Learn From Users. It Quickly Became a Racist Jerk.
Microsoft set out to learn about “conversational understanding” by creating a bot designed to have automated discussions with Twitter users, mimicking the language they use.

What could go wrong?

If you guessed, “It will probably become really racist,” you’ve clearly spent time on the Internet. Less than 24 hours after the bot, @TayandYou, went online Wednesday, Microsoft halted posting from the account and deleted several of its most obscene statements.

The bot, developed by Microsoft’s technology and research and Bing teams, got major assistance in being offensive from users who egged it on. It disputed the existence of the Holocaust, referred to women and minorities with unpublishable words and advocated genocide. Several of the tweets were sent after users commanded the bot to repeat their own statements, and the bot dutifully obliged.

Source: New York Times

I can't imagine how many bots that Facebook and Twitter use to fuel conversation and controversy.

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

I always wondered why mankind does this, and it is probably because if we can, and we're curious about it, then someone will eventually do it.

Similar to the possibility of a large comet striking the Earth, like the possibility of nanobots destroying the biosphere (“gray goop” hypothesis), or a high-speed particle accelerator doing us in, this is in the category of “just one more thing.”

It’s a large number times a small number. The goal is to be smart, but not be paranoid.

But I have a confession. If I dive in and study one of these, I personally have a hard time not becoming paranoid!

 

[AgnosticBoy]

Similar to the possibility of a large comet striking the Earth, like the possibility of nanobots destroying the biosphere (“gray goop” hypothesis),

Here is the nanobots version...

For those not familiar with the movie, an alien robot Klaatu turns into a swarm of nanobots and threatens to destroy the world.