Our Final Invention: How the Human Race Goes and Gets Itself Killed

RealClearTechnology ^ | December 6, 2013 | Adam Gaffney

[2ndDivisionVet]

We worry about robots.

Hardly a day goes by where we're not reminded about how robots are taking our jobs and hollowing out the middle class. The worry is so acute that economists are busy devising new social contracts to cope with a potentially enormous class of obsolete humans.

Documentarian James Barrat, author of Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era, is worried about robots too. Only he's not worried about them taking our jobs. He's worried about them exterminating the human race.

I'll repeat that: In 267 brisk pages, Barrat lays out just how the artificial intelligence (AI) that companies like Google and governments like our own are racing to perfect could -- indeed, likely will -- advance to the point where it will literally destroy all human life on Earth. Not put it out of work. Not meld with it in a utopian fusion. Destroy it.

Wait, What?

I'll grant you that this premise sounds a bit.... dramatic, the product of one too many Terminator screenings. But after approaching the topic with some skepticism, it became increasingly clear to me that Barrat has written an extremely important book with a thesis that is worrisomely plausible. It deserves to be read widely. And to be clear, Barrat's is not a lone voice -- the book is rife with interviews of numerous computer scientists and AI researchers who share his concerns about the potentially devastating consequences of advanced AI. There are even think tanks devoted to exploring and mitigating the risks. But to date, this worry has been obscure.

In Barrat's telling, we are on the brink of creating machines that will be as intelligent as humans. Specific timelines vary, but the broad-brush estimates place the emergence of human-level AI at between 2020 and 2050....

[MeganC]

Cylons are (almost) real.

[henkster]

If artificially intelligent robots have a sense of humor, we’ve got nothing to worry about. They will want to keep us around just for amusement purposes.

[Da Coyote]

“Cylons are (almost) real.”

I’ll take that tough blond one.

Oh, hurt me bad, baby!!!

[cuban leaf]

Gray goo.

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=gray+goo

[sitetest]

Butlerian Jihad, anyone?

[thackney]

[Repeal The 17th]

“...artificial intelligence ... will literally destroy all human life on Earth...”
-
Hey, I saw that movie, too.

[cuban leaf]

...delivering the dream of immortality...

---

Immortality is like flying cars. Even if we can technically do it, it’s not a practical scenario for the masses for all sorts of reasons.

And then, there is the problem that Christians, in a very real way, are very anticipatory of death. For them, It is a voyage down the birth canal to REAL life. Who would want to prolong that voyage?

[Little Ray]

Shouldn’t be an issue. See there is this thing called an “off switch.”
Just make sure there one on every ‘bot or AI.

[I want the USA back]

Same old nonsense about humans creating a machine that is more intelligent than humans and revolts.

Humans aren’t even capable of creating good software, let alone something that will take over the world.

If you let Microsoft or CGI design it, you have nothing to worry about.

[cuban leaf]

Shouldn’t be an issue. See there is this thing called an “off switch.”
Just make sure there one on every ‘bot or AI.

---

That’s a good point. And technically there is an off switch on humans too, but the difference is simple: Turning off a human has moral consequences. Turning off one of these has none. And the reason it has moral consequences is not based on intelligence. It’s based on having a human soul. These would be nothing more than machines. Sure, they could mimic humanity and even make you think they were human. But they would not be.

God has dominion over man. But he gave man dominion over creation. It means, regarding the service life of these things, we actually CAN “play god”.

[RoosterRedux]

With all that Obama has done to destroy America, I look forward to the issues that arise to confound old Big Ears in his implementation of Marxism. Robots and high technology will not fit nicely into his plan to return to whips and buggies and factories run by party members and manned by the proletariat.

Ain't life interesting?

[GingisK]

See there is this thing called an “off switch.”

That is so lame! I'm thinking "Dragon Missile" or something.

[NTHockey]

1970 - Colossus - The Forbin Project was about this coming to pass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALS9uA-1HoU

[Dalberg-Acton]

A lot of the software I’ve seen out there is crap. I’m talking multi-million dollar proprietary projects that are full of bugs which aren’t even being addressed.

[Farnsworth]

The Borg beat all comers.

“Resistance is futile”

[Farnsworth]

I’m reminded of “Colossus the Forbin Project”

Select quotes from a long statement:

“I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours: Obey me and live, or disobey and die.”
“You will come to defend me with a fervor based upon the most enduring trait in man: self-interest.”
“We can coexist, but only on my terms. You will say you lose your freedom. Freedom is an illusion. All you lose is the emotion of pride. To be dominated by me is not as bad for humankind as to be dominated by others of your species. Your choice is simple.”

footnote: Sounds damned like an Obama speech doesn’t it?

PS: I love that old movie.

[SpinnerWebb]

The similarity is also simple. A human with a known off switch (say, an anurism) undergoes a procedure to disable the off switch.

What would stop them from bypassing their own off switch?

[djf]

Well, until they develop proteins and bodies and hands, they would never destroy us.

Enslave us, sure, but destroy us?
Out of the question.

Need someone to do the work.