Should we worry about AI (machine-learning)?
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I have to start this discussion with a note. AI = artificial intelligence. What that really means is not well defined. In my mind intelligence means being able to use acquired knowledge to solve problems never encountered before, optimizing utility.
These days the words “AI” are everywhere, but maybe we should start by saying that most of what is labeled AI today is really just “a machine learning algorithm and architecture”.
I like to start with this because I think it sets the tone for everything else. People have seen movies about AI and what it can do. They have seen AI controlling spaceships that get rid of their crew. AI that creates robot to wipe out the human race. AI that starts an atomic war and ends our planet.
There are also movies about AI curing all diseases, designing new devices, re-programming humans for the betterment of our world (yep!). And many more fantasies that paint a more rosy future.
These are movies, stories, fantasies. They are not real.
the question is: can they be real one day?
The answer is: nobody knows; we cannot predict the future. But because we are holding machines at a higher standard than humans, maybe we can take a quick look and summarize where humans stand in all this. What have humans done to other humans and to the environment so far in the last 100,000s of years since we have been around?
Humans grouped together and started to gather all possible resources from the environment. They would kill other animals, humans without much thought if only to take their land and resources. For a long time we were not able to destabilize the planet, beside being so nasty to each other. But then in the late 1800s we started building large machines that can cut trees and flatten the soil easily. Then the last 200 years we have be raping the planet with no end in sight. To the point that today we know well that if we keep going ahead we will have no planet any longer, no home to live in.
We are eating away our own Mother Earth, and…
