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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday February 03 2018, @09:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the modern-day-punishment dept.

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."

Also at CNN and Gizmodo.


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  • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday February 04 2018, @03:44AM (2 children)

    by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Sunday February 04 2018, @03:44AM (#632776) Homepage Journal

    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.

    I don't think you've really considered the means by which this scales.

    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
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 04 2018, @05:10PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 04 2018, @05:10PM (#632955)

    "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

      by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Sunday February 04 2018, @06:19PM (#632970) Homepage Journal

      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.

      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