Things are moving quickly: 12 years ago, I was able to make a room roar with laughter describing how hilarious it was to see Americans debate building killer robots due to a misunderstanding. In the last couple of years, the Oxford Union ran the same debating motion: This house would ban the building of killer robots, utterly straight. What was ludicrous just over a decade ago is now deadly serious.

Plenty of techno-futurists are terrified by the spectre of AI. Of course many of them are crazy, like the believers in Rokos Basilisk. Dont be fooled by the support from nutters though - its far from a niche concern. Here's what three really smart people had to say on the topic:

Elon Musk said: "I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I were to guess like what our biggest existential threat is, its probably that. So we need to be very careful with the artificial intelligence. Increasingly scientists think there should be some regulatory oversight maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we dont do something very foolish. With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon. In all those stories where theres the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, its like yeah hes sure he can control the demon. Didnt work out."

Bill Gates said: "I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence. First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don't understand why some people are not concerned."

Stephen Hawking said: "So, facing possible futures of incalculable benefits and risks, the experts are surely doing everything possible to ensure the best outcome, right? Wrong. If a superior alien civilisation sent us a message saying, "We'll arrive in a few decades," would we just reply, "OK, call us when you get here we'll leave the lights on"? Probably not but this is more or less what is happening with AI."

Imagine what would happen if the pioneers of any other major industry - petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals - started making public statements that the fruits of their labour could have catastrophic consequences. Is it really plausible that we would be as nonchalant as we are about AI?

See the original post here:

Hollywood has trivialised the artificial intelligence threat