It has been said that artificial intelligence will create the next industrial revolution, the fourth industrial revolution that modern-day society has experienced since the dawn of mechanical production and steam power energy documented in 1784. Next on the timeline of society’s pivotal transformation was electrical energy and mass production, while the third revolution because around 1969 with electronics and evolving to include the wide spread adoption of internet technologies. Today, many agree that the next wave of disruptive technology blurring the lines between the digital, physical and even the biological, will be the fourth industrial revolution of AI.
Similar to humans and nearly any evolved biological life-form, artificial intelligence is highly dynamic, rational and environmentally aware to take action, or multiple actions, to maximize its chance of success at some given goal. Dissimilar to humans in many respects, it’s able to clearly focus on statistical data, facts, predictive and reinforced outcome at an astonishing rate and doesn’t require a good eight hours of shut-eye every day.
But, there are many views and opinions on artificial intelligence, such as the fear that the rise of AI could evolve beyond our understanding and take over the world or perhaps destroy humanity. AI has even been described as mankind’s biggest threat, perhaps even bigger than the threat of nuclear war.
“AI is one of the most important things that humanity is working on. It’s more profound than electricity or fire…But [fire] kills people, too. They learn to harness fire for the benefits of humanity, but we have to overcome its downsides, too…It’s fair to be worried about AI.”
– Google CEO, Sundar Pichai
Science-fiction writing and popular movies, from “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) to “Avengers: Age of Ultron” (2015), have speculated about artificial intelligence (AI) that exceeds the expectations of its creators and escapes their control, eventually outcompeting and enslaving humans or targeting them for extinction.
Even in the real world, not everyone is ready to welcome AI with open arms. In recent years, as computer scientists have pushed the boundaries of what AI can accomplish, leading figures in technology and science have warned about the looming dangers that artificial intelligence may pose to humanity, even suggesting that AI capabilities could doom the human race.
Why are people so unnerved by the idea of AI?
An “Existential Threat”
Earlier, in 2014, Musk had labeled AI “our biggest existential threat,” and in August 2017, he declared that humanity faced a greater risk from AI than from North Korea.
Physicist Stephen Hawking, who died March 14, also expressed concerns about malevolent AI, telling the BBC in 2014 that “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”
It’s also less than reassuring that some programmers – particularly those with MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts – seem determined to prove that AI can be terrifying.
Fear and Loathing
“One thing that people are afraid of, is that if super-intelligent AI – more intelligent than us – becomes conscious, it could treat us like lower beings, like we treat monkeys,” said Kilian Weinberger, an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University. “That would certainly be undesirable.”
However, fears that AI will develop awareness and overthrow humanity are grounded in misconceptions of what AI is, Weinberger noted. AI operates under very specific limitations defined by the algorithms that dictate its behaviour. Some types of problems map well to AI’s skill sets, making certain tasks relatively easy for AI to complete.
“AI reaching consciousness – there has been absolutely no progress in research in that area,” Weinberger said. “I don’t think that’s anywhere in our near future.”
What exactly might “consciousness” mean for artificial intelligence (AI) in the real world, and how close is AI to reaching that goal?
Philosophers have described consciousness as having a unique sense of self coupled with an awareness of what’s going on around you.
And neuroscientists have offered their own perspective on how consciousness might be quantified, through analysis of a person’s brain activity as it integrates and interprets sensory data.
However, applying those rules to AI is tricky. In some ways, the processing abilities of AI are not unlike those that take place in human brains. Sophisticated AI systems use a process called deep learning to solve computational tasks quickly, using networks of layered algorithms that communicate with each other to solve more and more complex problems.
It’s a strategy very similar to that of our own brains, where information speeds across connections between neurons. In a neural network, deep learning enables AI to teach itself how to identify disease, win a strategy game against the best human player in the world, or write a pop song.
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Despite all the fears and threats that AI might represent, what we should expect is that the world will undergo an amazing transformation in how we interact with computers. Autonomous self-driving vehicles, humanitarian research, personalized medicine, homeland security and even seamlessly interacting as a global society regardless of language or location are just a few of the exciting elements we will experience within our lifetime; and this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg that will advance our knowledge and understanding of our place in the universe for generation to come.
