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The hysteria about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere. There seems to be no shortage of sensationalist news about how AI could cure diseases, accelerate human innovation and improve human creativity. Just looking at the media headlines, you might think that we are already living in a future where AI has infiltrated every aspect of society.
While it is undeniable that AI has opened up a wealth of promising opportunities, it has also led to the emergence of a mindset that can be best described as "AI solutionism". This is the philosophy that, given enough data, machine learning algorithms can solve all of humanity's problems.
But there's a big problem with this idea. Instead of supporting AI progress, it actually jeopardises the value of machine intelligence by disregarding important AI safety principles and setting unrealistic expectations about what AI can really do for humanity.
In only a few years, the pendulum has swung from the dystopian notion that AI will destroy humanity to the utopian belief that our algorithmic saviour is here.
[...] Examples demonstrate that there is no AI solution for everything. Using AI simply for the sake of AI may not always be productive or useful. Not every problem is best addressed by applying machine intelligence to it. This is the crucial lesson for everyone aiming to boost investments in national AI programmes: all solutions come with a cost and not everything that can be automated should be.
What is your take on this? Do you think AI (as currently defined), can solve any of the problems, man-made and otherwise, of this world?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Tuesday May 29 2018, @01:58AM (2 children)
Short answer? Maybe. I don't believe in algorithmic salvation. I'm sure something good will come out of it, if nothing else it will do most of the boring maths. But that notion of if we just tame the machine God AI it will take all out datas and create utopia? Nope, not going to happen.
For some time it might or will probably create more problems, new or old, then it solves.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @02:33AM
"It's stinky! Stinky, stinky!" someone bellowed. The language used was that of a child's, but the person who shouted it had the voice of an adult male. Looking around the dim room, one could see an obese man pinching his nostrils shut. Indeed, the foul odor present in the room was intolerable. Where was it coming from? The man looked around.
"Ah." Bigham muttered. Having found the location of the obnoxious stench, the man slowly nodded his head as if recalling something. Bigham's actions had produced too much garbage, and it was all rotting away in his house because he was too lazy to throw it out. Thus, this undesirable outcome was the result.
Finally, the riddle had been solved. They were garbage now. Yes, "they"; those children, that is. When was it? Bigham remembered that he had tortured and violated those kids a few months ago. Since the man became too rough, the little ones all quickly broke and became trash that could only rot away and inconvenience him. "How dare they!" Bigham shouted, as he kicked one of the children's corpses. Yes, this poor man was being oppressed by these mutilated, rotten corpses. Would this righteous man let his oppressors get away with their heinous actions? No. This injustice will not stand.
Not long after that, a number of human corpses were found in a dumpster. However, these corpses were so mangled and devastated that it raised the question of whether they were even human corpses to begin with, as though they had drawn the ire of a madman. Men's rights was truly a wondrous thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @02:48AM
Mathematica already does "the boring maths"