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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @09:03AM (11 children)
You have zero data to make any estimate about how far or close we are from hard AI.
Note that "tens of millennia" already describes all of human history. Seriously, could you have predicted from looking at civilization from merely 5000 years ago that we're already sending people into space? Or even from civilization 2000 years ago? What about 500 years ago? 200 years ago?
(Score: 3, Funny) by NotSanguine on Tuesday May 29 2018, @09:10AM (8 children)
Yes. Next question.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @01:04PM
Well, it depends on POV.
Looking back, now that we know that space exists (or more to the point, that "sky" ends after a while when going up), that it is reachable with finite amount of energy, and that forces of nature can be harvested to provide the sufficient amount of energy, we could easily predict that humans will figure it out eventually.
However, looking from perspective of someone from one of those respective ages, there is an infinite number of reasons for doubt.
We could make a wager today, and someone 5000 years from now (if there'll be someone) could judge our bet, about something not existent today that could or could not be possible in 5000 years time, but we cannot predict with certainty, because we are still in process of finding out.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 29 2018, @10:22PM (6 children)
No. Next bald assertion.
(Score: 3, Touché) by NotSanguine on Tuesday May 29 2018, @10:42PM (5 children)
Not really. 5,000 years ago, I *could* have predicted space travel, impressionist art, vajazzling [wikipedia.org], self-immolation as a form of yoga, or any number of other things.
It seems unlikely that I would have done so, but I certainly could have done so.
Words have specific meanings. Perhaps you, and the poster whose blathering I initially replied, might remember that next time.
What's more, such blathering adds nothing to the discussion.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 30 2018, @01:20AM (4 children)
You wouldn't have, but you could have. Such is the difference between reality and what is mathematically possible.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday May 30 2018, @02:32PM (3 children)
No no...step back: science fiction writers do this all the time: make predictions.
Someone MAY have written a story about an all powerful 'god-like' being that is really truly fucked (lol), whereas others might have written a story about aliens visiting (some hieroglyphs suggest such a thing)
It IS possible and quite realistic someone COULD have 'predicted' all SORTS of things.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 31 2018, @04:39AM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 31 2018, @12:32PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday June 01 2018, @12:24AM
Science fiction had its beginnings in the time when the line between myth and fact was blurred. Written in the 2nd century AD by the Hellenized Syrian satirist Lucian, A True Story contains many themes and tropes that are characteristic of modern science fiction, including travel to other worlds, extraterrestrial lifeforms, interplanetary warfare, and artificial life. Some consider it the first science fiction novel.
--- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction [wikipedia.org]
But past that, the writing would have to be in stone, I guess, or kept in an urn-like vessel: kind of like the dead sea Scrolls.
*Cough* That is unless you see the Bible as a sort of science fiction story *cough*
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @09:52AM (1 child)
Yes. All of them.
What I would seriously have had difficulty being able to predict 100 years ago is that we'd still be reliant on the petrol-driven automobile.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @09:58AM
Or that we'd still be murdering each other in the name of God.