When it comes to AI, are you a cynic or are you an optimist?

For this blog post I'm hoping to start a discussion on how do you view AI?

A cost (where even though it has benefits, but in a broader sense will cost humanity such as in jobs, security, autonomy (think the terminator series) etc.), or an opportunity (where even though AI has a cost but in a broader sense, you expect it to benefit humanity more than it costs us).

For some more context, almost everyone I talk to believe AI is generally bad and hence can be generally called cynics when it comes to AI. Many believe that at best, AI will take our jobs and at worst will even begin to control humans.

Image by WikiImages from Pixabay

For example, the popular philosopher Nick Bostrom argues in his book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies that it is actually quite possible for an AI after a period time of learning to become more intelligent than its designer. Nick is a very intelligent guy and his claim is quite fascinating and clearly beyond the realms science fiction. Infact, the central theme of his book was to show how dangerous an unconstrained machine intelligence can be. He used the simple but non-trivial example of a paper clip maximizer, designed to make paper clips and after exhausting all available materials to make paper clips and because it is unconstrained (i.e. could have been designed to stop after materials have been exhausted), will begin to make new materials so as to continue its paper clip maximizing function. Of course whether the paper clip maximizer that operates this way is actually intelligent (a human would have stopped long before materials are exhausted) is a totally different debate but I'm sure you get Nick's point.

On the other hand, there are AI optimists such as the futurist *Ray Kurzweil who wrote The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology and believes a singularity (think dividing a number by zero to get an infinite, non-quantifiable number) where AI advances so rapidly that it no longer needs human designers to improve it further - a true Skynet is born.

Image by pasja1000 from Pixabay

Which camp do you belong to? An AI cynic or an AI optimist or are you somewhere in between. Let's hear your thoughts. On my part, I'll respond to all posts and may even probe more to better understand your views on this very interesting and important topic at this time of our lives. Thanks for reading.

Yours in learning,