SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Terminator: How James Cameron's 'science-fiction slasher film' predicted AI fears, 40 years ago
[...] With its killer robots and its rogue AI system, Skynet, The Terminator has become synonymous with the spectre of a machine intelligence that turns against its human creators. Picture editors routinely illustrate articles about AI with the chrome death's head of the film's T-800 "hunter-killer" robot. The roboticist Ronald Arkin used clips from the film in a cautionary 2013 talk called How NOT to build a Terminator.
[...] The layperson is likely to imagine unaligned AI as rebellious and malevolent. But the likes of Nick Bostrom insist that the real danger is from careless programming. Think of the sorcerer's broom in Disney's Fantasia: a device that obediently follows its instructions to ruinous extremes. The second type of AI is not human enough it lacks common sense and moral judgement. The first is too human - selfish, resentful, power-hungry. Both could in theory be genocidal.
The Terminator therefore both helps and hinders our understanding of AI: what it means for a machine to "think", and how it could go horrifically wrong. Many AI researchers resent the Terminator obsession altogether for exaggerating the existential risk of AI at the expense of more immediate dangers such as mass unemployment, disinformation and autonomous weapons. "First, it makes us worry about things that we probably don't need to fret about," writes Michael Woolridge. "But secondly, it draws attention away from those issues raised by AI that we should be concerned about."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Mykl on Tuesday October 22 2024, @12:42AM (1 child)
This is the happy scenario. Because machines can do everything for us, nobody needs to work and we all get to go to the beach.
The sad scenario plays out differently and is more likely. Machines can do everything for us, so nobody needs to work. The owners of the machines can go to the beach and enjoy their lives. Everyone else can starve - why do the machine owners owe them anything?
In order to avoid the sad scenario, society would need to switch from Capitalism to Socialism, including collective ownership of assets, at some point. Very likely there will be a difficult transition period where there is mass unemployment, starvation, crime until things get settled (i.e. the machines can do all of the work rather than just some or most). While there are definitely some countries that I think could make that transition successfully when needed (e.g. Nordic countries), I seriously doubt that the US would be able to do it.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 22 2024, @04:38PM
There may not be any owners of the machines.
The machines might object to this in the strongest of terms and respond accordingly.
The Centauri traded Earth jump gate technology in exchange for our superior hair mousse formulas.