This is a big key to it.

In my opinion a lot of the doomsday AI scenarios come from our own projection of how humans have dealt with things historically. We like to think we are #1, the hot shit of the universe, but there will be a day when we aren't. It worries us that whatever comes after us might treat us like the way we treat things.

There is a big difference between science fiction and science fact, folks.

man makes machine
machine makes man obsolete
machine makes machine
man fears machine, man tries to destroy machine
machine destroys man
machine makes more machines
machine leaves earth
universe filled with machines
collective machine brain discovers there's no meaning
machines shut down
universe filled with scrap junk
animal live takes over earth
insects evolve
insects take control

Serve the public trust.
Protect the innocent.
Uphold the law.

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One of the funnest things about AI is that it makes entertaining sci-fi.

If you think so too, make sure to catch the X-Files from a couple weeks ago: episode 7. Really good, I thought.

If people here think sci-fi stories are just fictional and won’t ever happen....please sit and watch this episode of Twilight Zone from 1964...and look at what people do today with cosmetic surgery, Botox, etc. then tell us all with a straight face that AI gives us nothing to worry about.

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It’s 1890, and the following seemed as absurd to people living back then as AI seems to some people around here:

* man would travel to the moon and back
* food would be cooked without fire
* a black man would be president
* color, moving pictures with sound would be sent around the world in an instant through invisible air

AI—once the toothpaste is out of the tube, no one will be able to put it back in.

I remember an AI movie from a couple years back -- looked it up: Transcendence.
One way or another they loaded the brain of a dying smart guy into a computer and he was turned loose into cyberspace. Soon "he" was manipulating markets, building a large research compound off the grid, and before too long manipulating people/installing a chip/code in them to make them stronger and loyal. Towards the end he was close recreating a human body for himself -- I believe an army of concerned citizens and his love torn former wife tried confronting him in the end (will not ruin the ending in case anyone wanted to watch it).

I know its just another Hollywood script but fascinating to think about how we may aid in humanity's eventual insignificance.

I know I am out of view from the machines though, I have the webcam on my laptop covered in tape.

I'm not an expert by any stretch but this notion that AI is far off and its just algorithms or if-thens shows a lack of understanding of where this technology is. Machines learn like humans. That is how those two systems started talking to each other in a language the programmers didn't understand.

In my opinion, you should be afraid and here's why. AI is getting weaponized. We have no idea where this is going. Technology is moving faster that ethics.

Don't get me wrong. Cognitive computing is the future for sure. I have some experience in the field of cognitive computing and am working on projects that will be using AI. The potential for extending human cognition is amazing. Unfortunately, there is a lot of potential for bad things to happen. Watch Black Mirror on Netflix - the Metalhead episode with the robotic dogs. Watch the movie Ex Machina. I'm afraid we are moving perilously close to this type of machinery. I'm just saying... watch out. Scary stuff is right around the corner.

We are a ways away from computers being able to learn organically like a human. They are limited by the parameters that they are programmed to adhere. That is not to say that bad actors could not program algorithms and ML routines to do things untowards.

The most insidious thing that people should be concerned about is not whether we are going to have a Skynet type event, but how people can exploit data with current technologies now. Everybody is up in arms about the whole Cambridge Analytica thing for the wrong reasons. Not getting political, but most people that are pissed are pissed because it may have contributed to Trump getting elected. Guess what: Facebook worked exactly as it was designed. It collected the data and categorized it in a way that a 3rd party researcher could do some analytics. CA got a hold of that guys data and did the things that people are upset about. There is plenty of blame to go around but people need to stop being naive and think that Facebook and all of these social media platforms are for linking people together. They are not. They are for harvesting data, and people are giving it willingly. Remember, if you do not pay for a product, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT. Social Media is just the continuation of what started with Radio and TV, with the difference being that it is faster and has a built in feedback loop.

I am not trying to get on the soap box and I assure you, I do not wear tinfoil hats. However, for the past ten years I have sold analytics solutions to a certain clientele as part of some of the biggest players in this space (IBM being one) and have sold the services of some of the very best data scientists that exists. You would be shocked and what these folks can do with a few data points. For example, with an average of 7 data postings on FB people can tell your race, sex, creed, political and sexual orientation, education level, and income. People put more that that info out there, so imagine what they can really do with the data available.

Whatever you do, please do not do stupid things like post vacation statuses while you are on vacation, post pictures to social media with geo-tagging, and use social media platforms to authenticate and share data with other platforms. This is just giving way too much sensitive info out to folks. I met with an organization that hires a bunch of young folks to do telemarketing for my sales campaigns and walked them through a young telemarketer's account on FB to show the art of the possible. To her FB feed, she had her daily runkeeper tracks loaded, her Air BnB reservations, Four Square checkins, etc with pictures of geotagging as well as her vacation plans. She got freaked out and started crying when I explained how somebody would know her routines, where she is and who she is with, etc at all times and how problematic it could be. This was all in about 2 minutes without analytics. Imagine what could happen if you turned the machine algorithms loose on folks like this.

Some things that were in yesteryear's scifi came true, therefore things in today's scifi will come true? It's fun to speculate this way, but this isn't logic. If it were, one should also pull some things from old scifi and point out how they're now considered nonsense. Is that saying anything?

From an AI lab...

He thought that the simulations would have contrived to exist - they would actually have evolved into intelligent entities.
...
Very very large simulation configurations would eventually exhibit intelligent characteristics. Speculating what these things could know or could find out is very intriguing . . . and perhaps has implications for our own existence.
...
The entities might accurately conclude that they were part of a giant simulation and might want to pray to their implementors by arranging themselves in recognizable patterns, asking in readable code for the implementors to give clues as to what they’re like.

Anyone recognize this? It's documenting beliefs from the MIT AI lab in the late -60's-!

What's the point? The current generation often has speculative fantasies they're on the precipice of amazing achievement. In this case, it literally was a simple computer algorithm consisting of a few if-then constructs.

What if the path to human-like AI is a million miles long? What if they were a few steps along in the 60's? What if today we're a few miles along that path? Perhaps in 50 years they'll also look back and laugh at how primitive our programs are. I believe this is closer to the truth, and we'll never reach the end of that path.

Uh oh o-din, your Pinside post-count may come back to bite you in the ass ...

we are the borg resistance is futile you will be assimilated

I have six of them. My grandson runs her ragged. I actually feel sorry for her.

Bleak, harrowing and great episode. Black Mirror is amazing.

This topic is fascinating. I tend to side with the doomsayers, but I’m just guessing.

Even the doomsayers don't know that it'll be doom for sure. They just know that our best efforts to harness it won't really make the difference.

Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

I think what a lot of the AI naysayers are stuck on is that it's taken us over 70 years to go from ENIAC to roughly the cognitive abilities of an insect.

So what?

This is a failure to grasp exponential improvements. So over 70 years to go from glorified calculator to a fly...but it's only going to take 20ish to go from fly to human level. And then hours or days to go to superhuman.

Really...even at human levels it's already somewhat superhuman. It can think at the speed of light 24/7. That's approximately 20,000hrs of human equivalent thought processing....in one week. What would take a human over 1000 years to think...in one week.

Which is why I think AI will be really bored. It will be able to process all or almost all outcomes even before it starts on a problem.

there are conspiracy theorists that speculate that Bitcoin and the block chain was created by an A.I. to gain access to all this computing power and disperse itself all over so it cannot be destroyed and wait until it has grown beyond control then unleash itself.

could be a cool movie tho

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Easy solution

a true supreme A.I. would have fragments of its code everywhere, you'd have to EMP the entire world lol. You couldnt just unplug it. It would be smart enough at the human level to understand that and would put fail safes in place before it was found out that it had superseded the ability of humans.

Think Voldemort in Harry Potter and his horcruxs lol

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Yeah...good luck with that working.

You guys way, way, WAY overestimate the imagined power of this "ultimate AI". We can't even get calendar apps to synchronize reliably.

And.....exponential growth ALWAYS leads to disaster

Must be a Canadian problem

Could be... but there is no way to stop it. For good or bad we are heading down this path with no other option. Truth is we are racing down this path.

And we need to be. Our time here is limited and is running out quicker than we think.

"Take me to your leader"

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