Should we fear Artificial Intelligence?

It is hard to think good things will come with AI with hit movies like Terminator and 2001 A Space Odyssey. Even Earth's greatest minds fear human like artificial intelligence (AI). But the real question is: Should we fear AI?

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What is AI used for?

AI is used in everyday life to improve our everyday life experiences! Websites like Amazon use a type of AI algorithm to predict products that we would like to buy . Smartphone applications use Artificial Intelligence for voice recognition features or image recognition. Believe it or not, but on steemit we can find AI or bots as we like to call them. These bots can upvote or even comment. There are even more advanced AI like the cheetah bot that can spot users that plagiarize! So far these AI does not look so scary, right? Those examples above are called weak AI. It is not a too advance type of AI, we call it Weak AI. But even this weak AI can be dangerous, especially when a group of these AIs work together. They can become malware that spreads like a virus, but it can fry your computer circuits. There have been allot of recorded AI malware attacks. So do not judge a book by it's cover when it comes to weak AIs. But that is not where their reign of terror stops! These weak AIs can also be a threat to humans when it comes to board games like chess or even game shows!

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If you are not afraid of losing at chess or some board game then there is really not too much to fear!

IBM's Watson is a AI that can answer sensible questions from users. It can also formulate up to 3 sensible arguments on a topic that was given from a human user. It has crushed humans in the game show Jeopardy! This is really cool and scary! Watson is used in medical practices to help advice (with high accuracy) the best possible treatment for the patient. Alpha Go is a AI that implements machine learning and was the first AI to beat professional go players! Humans also have a hard time beating AI in board games like chess since the 1990's. To make things even worse for humans is the fact that these AI can drive more safer and more effective drivers in our Ineffective road system! But even these top of the range advanced AI that we have today is an example of weak AI. The AI that we should fear is AI that is so advance that it is self aware!

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"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." - Stephan Hawking.

The famous physicist, Stephan Hawking, expressed his opinion on AI to the BBC on 2 December 2014. He and other famous boffins like Elon Musk are afraid of human survival in the event of the technological singularity. The singularity was first described by the mathematician John von Neumann in the 1950's. Our technology are developing at a exponential curve. Intel's co-founder Gordon Moore Predicted that each year our computer becomes twice as fast as the previous year! This phenomena is called moore's law. John's technological singularity states that if we develop fully conscious AI, they will make and grow or technology at an even faster pace. This will be to overwhelming and unpredictable for humans that we will call it a singularity! He predicted the singularity to happen somewhere in 2040's!

But will this AI destroy us?

We honestly do not know. This is why Stephan Hawking and Elon musk fear AI. We do not know if will destroy us or help us in our cause. If they truly like us, then they will have motives and causes. If they find us as something worthless to keep, then they will find ways to destroy us with it's amazing technology and weapons that we would not even be able to understand. In fact they might grow and develop so fast, that we might not even understand it's language or thoughts at all. It will be like us trying to talk to an chimpanzee about quantum mechanics. This whole idea makes most of us (including me) feel at unease.

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But should this stop us from developing AI?

The benefits of having AI to help solve our real world problems actually outweighs the fact that it might destroy us! Imagine the AI helping us to make technology behind our wildest dreams! It will help us understand the world outside even more! But we need some kind of kill switch (or maybe other AI!) to keep the ones we use in check. We could deactivate or delete them in a event where they go rough. Elon Musk signed an open letter alongside Stephan Hawking in funding the Future For Life Institute which helps the with the research and development of AI and the necessary tools keep them in check!

The verdict:

Should we fear AI, yes and no. We should not fear the AI that we have today! In fact, we should embrace it and use it's amazing applications to improve our daily lives. We should also not fear it's development because it might one day help us to solve big world problems like global warming! What do you think? Should we support or fear AI? leave a comment bellow and give an upvote and follow if you liked what you read! and as always Thanks for reading!

note: I am sorry not for posting these past two days. It has been a hectic week. I will try to Post everyday, but I can not guarantee it for the rest of this month. Bare with me and Thanks for all of your support!

Some good reads:

Elon musk Open letter.
Stephan hawikings interview with the BBC
Moore's law
Technological singularity

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