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Fire good. AI better:
Google CEO Sundar Pichai says artificial intelligence is going to have a bigger impact on the world than some of the most ubiquitous innovations in history. "AI is one of the most important things humanity is working on. It is more profound than, I dunno, electricity or fire," says Pichai, speaking at a town hall event in San Francisco in January.
A number of very notable tech leaders have made bold statements about the potential of artificial intelligence. Tesla boss Elon Musks says AI is more dangerous than North Korea. Famous physicist Stephen Hawking says AI could be the "worst event in the history of our civilization." And Y Combinator President Sam Altman likens AI to nuclear fission.
Even in such company, Pichai's comment seems remarkable. Interviewer and Recode executive editor Kara Swisher stopped Pichai when he made the comment. "Fire? Fire is pretty good," she retorts. Pichai sticks by his assertion. "Well, it kills people, too," Pichai says of fire. "We have learned to harness fire for the benefits of humanity but we had to overcome its downsides too. So my point is, AI is really important, but we have to be concerned about it."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Saturday February 03 2018, @04:27PM (4 children)
Are the egos of those making such claims and the effort (now much less than even before) required for such obvious and ridiculous self-promotion.
At the current level of the technology, the idea that "AI" is somehow more transformative than fire or electricity is just self-promotion and ego masturbation.
The *functional* "AI" we have today (and will have for the foreseeable future) are solely expert systems that operate in incredibly narrow domains. When an artificial construct can (or at least a significant subset thereof), as Heinlein put it:
then we'll have what most consider to be "AI". Until then, we just have a bunch of narrowly focused expert systems that can (sometimes, perhaps even often) do one thing well.
That's not to say that having these expert systems is a bad thing. In fact, such systems are, for the most part, great to have and provide significant to us. I expect that trend to continue.
But all the hype is just that, hype.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @11:58PM (3 children)
"Until then, we just have a bunch of narrowly focused expert systems"
Incidentally that also describes the human brain, if you consider the different sections of it to be independent systems functioning in parallel. The ability to copy code from one system to another, fully withstanding. That a power supply is the same for multiple computational systems, does not make them incompatible or intolerant of one another.
IOW, I don't think you've really considered the means by which this scales.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday February 04 2018, @03:44AM (2 children)
I don't this you've really considered the nature of consciousness or the scale of integration that feeds such consciousness.
Integration of experience/stimuli into the conscious mind is not like a SQL 'JOIN' statement.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 04 2018, @05:10PM (1 child)
"nature of consciousness"
I wasn't under the impression that that, was the scope of the OP. What your essentially saying is that because AI won't reach human degrees of consciousness any time soon, that the scope of influence is not going to be huge.
"Integration of experience/stimuli into the conscious mind is not like a SQL 'JOIN' statement."
Again, your conflating architecture with scale. And the scale is currently primarily limited by I/O, not processing. That is changing. And as it changes, it will accelerate architecture change.
Bah! They will never invent something that rolls over the ground instead of being dragged! Poppycock!
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday February 04 2018, @06:19PM
I never said anything even approaching that. Now be a good boy and hush. Adults are talking now. And I do emphasize the word 'boy'.
Toodles, cutie! :)
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr