You will agree that everything we love about modern civilization is a product of intelligence so we have to look at the Benefits & Risks of AI. Therefore, improving our human intelligence with artificial intelligence has a high potential of helping civilization flourish like never before. All these can lead to a more easier way to live as long as we manage to keep the technology beneficial to everyone.
WHAT IS AI – ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?
Taking a look from Apple’s SIRI to autonomous/ self-driving cars, artificial intelligence (AI) is progressing very quickly. The history of science fiction often portrays AI as robots with human-like characteristics, AI can encompass anything from voice recognition to Google’s search algorithms as well as IBM’s Watson to autonomous weapons.
Presently, Artificial intelligence has four types. But it is properly known as narrow AI (or weak AI), because it is designed to perform a narrow task (e.g. only voice/facial recognition or only internet searches or only driving a car). It does one task at a time. However, the long-term goal of several scholars is to develop general AI (AGI or strong AI). Since the weak/narrow AI may outperform humans at whatever its specific task is, like playing computer chess or solving mathematical or chemical equations, AGI would outperform humans at nearly every cognitive task and faster.
WHY RESEARCH AI SAFETY?
Looking at the future, the main goal of keeping AI’s impact on society beneficial motivates both scholars and other advanced researchers in many areas. The benefits will impact areas like economics, law, technical topics such as verification, validity, security and control. Whereas it may be little more than a minor nuisance if your laptop crashes or gets hacked by cyberattacks. It becomes all the more important that an AI system does what you want it to do. AI can control your car, your airplane, your pacemaker, your automated trading system or your power grid. Another short-term challenge is preventing a devastating arms race in lethal autonomous weapons. This is the main fear of the future.
On the long run, a very vital question is what exactly will happen if the quest for strong AI succeeds in the future. What if AI system becomes better than humans at all cognitive tasks. We have to be prepared for it. Just as illustrated by I.J. Good in the year 1965, designing smarter AI systems is itself a comprehensible task. That type of system could potentially undergo recursive self-improvement. It can trigger an intelligence explosion leaving human intellect lagging. By inventing revolutionary new technologies, such a super-intelligence might help us eradicate war, disease, and poverty. In addition, the creation of strong AI might be the biggest event in human history. Some experts have expressed concern, though, that it might also be the last. All these are expected unless we learn to align the goals of the AI with ours before it becomes over-intelligent.
Currently, there are some who question whether strong AI will ever be achieved. There are also others who insist that the creation of superintelligent AI is guaranteed to be beneficial to everyone. At the technology ends, researchers recognize both of these possibilities. Also, they recognize the potential for an artificial intelligence system to intentionally or unintentionally cause great harm to the world. But, we believe research today will help us better prepare for and prevent such potentially negative consequences in the future, thereby enjoying the benefits of AI while avoiding downsides. These reasons are why we must study the Benefits and Risks of AI.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Existential Safety Community
I, alongside other researchers believes that the research today will help us better prepare for, and prevent such potentially negative consequences in the future. This preparation will enable us enjoy the benefits of AI while avoiding issues of machines. Us the search box to view our growing community of AI existential safety researchers. With that you can get new updates the Benefits and Risks of AI online.
Benefits and Risks of AI
- AI can increase work efficiency.
- Machines can work with high accuracy.
- It can reduce cost of training and operation.
- Artificial Intelligence can Improve Processes.
- Risks of Artificial Intelligence.
- Research shows that AI is Unsustainable.
- Robots help to Lessen Jobs/Tasks time.
How can Artificial Intelligence (AI) be Dangerous to Humans? – Benefits and Risks of AI
Almost every AI researcher agree that a super-intelligent AI is unlikely to exhibit human emotions like love or hate. Also, there is no reason to expect AI to become intentionally benevolent or malevolent. Instead, when considering how AI might become a risk, experts think two scenarios most likely:
- The AI is programmed to do something devastating: Autonomous weapons are artificial intelligence systems that are programmed to kill. In the hands of the wrong person, these weapons could easily cause mass casualties. Moreover, an AI arms race could inadvertently lead to an AI war that also results in mass casualties. To avoid being thwarted by the enemy, these weapons would be designed to be extremely difficult to simply “turn off,” so humans could plausibly lose control of such a situation. This risk is one that’s present even with narrow AI, but grows as levels of AI intelligence and autonomy increase.
- The AI is programmed to do something beneficial, but it develops a destructive method for achieving its goal: This can happen whenever we fail to fully align the AI’s goals with ours, which is strikingly difficult. If you ask an obedient intelligent car to take you to the airport as fast as possible, it might get you there chased by helicopters and covered in vomit, doing not what you wanted but literally what you asked for. If a superintelligent system is tasked with a ambitious geoengineering project, it might wreak havoc with our ecosystem as a side effect, and view human attempts to stop it as a threat to be met.
Example: Lethal autonomous weapons
The upcoming Slaughterbots, also known as “lethal autonomous weapons systems” or “killer robots”, are weapons systems that use artificial intelligence (AI) to identify, select, and kill human targets without human intervention.
Believe it or not, this technology is already here. It also poses some huge risks. You can use the search box on this site to learn more about physical lethal autonomous weapons, and what we can do to prevent them.
You will agree that all these above examples illustrate, the concern about advanced AI isn’t malevolence but competence. Truly, a super-intelligent AI will be extremely great for accomplishing positive goals. But if those goals aren’t aligned with our plans for good, we have a very serious problem. Think about this example; you’re probably not an evil ant-hater who steps on ants out of malice. True? But if you’re in charge of a hydroelectric green energy project and there’s an anthill in the region to be flooded, too bad for the ants be you’ll eliminate them. In the physical, a key goal of AI safety research is to never place humanity in the position of those ants in your green energy project.
Why the Recent Interest in AI Safety by Researchers
Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, and many other big names in science & technology have their fears for AI too. They have recently expressed concern in the media and via open letters about the risks posed by AI, joined by many leading AI researchers & experts. The question is; why is the subject suddenly in the headlines of news?
The idea that the quest for strong AI would ultimately succeed was long thought of as science fiction, centuries or more away. However, thanks to recent breakthroughs, many AI milestones, which experts viewed as decades away merely five years ago, have now been reached, making many experts take seriously the possibility of superintelligence in our lifetime. While some experts still guess that human-level AI is centuries away, most AI researches at the 2015 Puerto Rico Conference guessed that it would happen before 2060. Since it may take decades to complete the required safety research, it is prudent to start it now.
Because AI has the potential to become more intelligent than any human, we have no surefire way of predicting how it will behave. We can’t use past technological developments as much of a basis because we’ve never created anything that has the ability to, wittingly or unwittingly, outsmart us. The best example of what we could face may be our own evolution. People now control the planet, not because we’re the strongest, fastest or biggest, but because we’re the smartest. If we’re no longer the smartest, are we assured to remain in control?
Hybrid Cloud Tech‘s position is that civilization will flourish as long as we win the race between the growing power of technology and the wisdom with which we manage it. In the case of AI technology, our position is that the best way to win that race is not to impede the former, but to accelerate the latter, by supporting AI safety research.
The Top Myths about Advanced AI
Be aware that there are more captivating conversation taking place about the future of artificial intelligence. Many are still looking at what it will/should mean for humanity. Conversely, there are fascinating controversies where the world’s leading experts disagree, which are:
- AI’s future impact on the job market;
- if/when human-level AI will be developed;
- whether this will lead to an intelligence explosion;
- and whether this is something we should welcome or fear.
Looking at things, there are also many examples of of boring pseudo-controversies caused by people misunderstanding and talking past each other. Furthermore, to help ourselves focus on the interesting controversies and open questions — and not on the misunderstandings — let’s clear up some of the most common myths. There’re more details about AI Myths vs Reality of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning which debunked for scholars. We will publish new updates on Benefits and Risks of AI – Artificial Intelligence every time. Subscribe for feeds.
