Artificial Intelligence offers profound promise for future productivity and optimal decision making. AI is likely to touch or have an impact in almost every industry. But there are also some with deep knowledge in the technology industry who fear a frightening outcome. The Financial Times has the story.
A new arms race in artificial intelligence and robotics risks spiralling out of human control, according to a report paving the way for next week’s World Economic Forum in Davos.
The WEF’s annual Global Risks report highlights mounting concern at the few regulatory constraints on AI technologies that are increasingly used in defence, as in other walks of life, and that may soon be able to out-think humans.
While it argues that reducing human oversight may increase efficiency and is necessary for applications such as driverless cars, the report warns of “dangers in coming to depend entirely on the decisions of AI systems when we do not fully understand how the systems are making those decisions”.
To date AI applications have been relatively narrow, limited to solving specific problems such as trading stocks. However, it is a rapidly developing field and such technologies are already starting to be deployed in areas where more serious ethical and security concerns arise….
It adds: “Some serious thinkers fear that AI could one day pose an existential threat: a ‘superintelligence’ might pursue goals that prove not to be aligned with the continued existence of humankind.”
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