Stephen Hawking, who is part machine, wants to stop the rise of the machines.
From Fast Company:
Stephen Hawking, who turns 71 today, has joined the board of an international think tank devoted to defending humanity from futuristic threats. The Cambridge Project for Existential Risk is a newly founded organization which researches existential threats to humanity such as extreme climate change, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, artificial life, nanotech, and other emerging technologies. Skype cofounder Jaan Tallinn and Cambridge professors Huw Price and Martin Rees founded the project in late 2012.
Price and Tallinn collaborated on a speech at the 2012 Sydney Ideas Festival which argued that artificial intelligence has reached a threshold that could lead to an explosion of autonomous machine dominance similar to the rise of Homo sapiens. The Cambridge Project for Existential Risk's stated goal is to establish a research center dedicated to the study of autonomous robot (and other) threats within Cambridge University.
Comments
For those suggesting that using machines in combat, or for broader military purposes is a bad thing, would you rather that we return to the days of warfare conducted by men standing in lines, firing bullets at each other? Last man standing wins?
That kind of warfare led to technological escalation, culminating in the use of atomic weapons. These days, through the use of technology, the ideal is to save lives (typically of your own troops I mean) during warfare. If that means we send a robot out into the field, then I see that as a better solution to send someone that could be killed.
Of course, I would much prefer that we didn't have warfare at all, but we're human, governments are (often) morally corrupt and ethically weak and they'll do whatever they need to in order to maintain "their way of life".
On a different point, here's an interesting thought (at least to me)... if we create machines which then ultimately evolve and one day survive on this planet after humanity dies out, could they be considered to be an evolution of humanity? They certainly wouldn't exist if humanity hadn't existed before them... and we created them using our own biological capabilities in a response to our environment and needs... sure, we didn't (likely) produce them through procreation... but... well, I'll leave it for you to ponder.
Dave, you've got that wrong. It's actually the MICE who have been manipulating us all this time. They have been tricking us, using counter-intelligence when we study their behaviour in labs, to get us to behave the way they want.
@ Thomas J Coyle III
sorry I'm bad at detecting those nuance online.
never give a robot a gun. did you know the predator drones in the AF have begun demonstrating a form of intelligence do to a software issue? its true ;)
@ Sgt Ric:
You mean the ZEROTH (ZERO-ith) law...Much like the Star Trek Vulcan principle : The needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few... or something close to that.
@Thomas J Coyle III
you've never read asimov's have you? because alot of his stories are about how the three laws don't work or can be worked around. but in all honestly this idea that man kind should be left in control is kind of like saying a retarded child should run the country so the smart people don't take over. this whole thing is more about the evil we see in ourselves then any reat threat from AI.
this whole fear of robot take over is pointless by the time that can happen there will also be cyborgs, genetically engineered humans and who knows what else running around.
"Correctly programmed" is an anachronism, a lot like "Military Intelligence".
@GaryMcCray,
I agree, every instance of the 3 Laws being violated occurrs when the artificial intellegence believes it is acting in the best interest of hummanity as a whole.
ie. the ends justify the means
I come from the opposite camp, Humans are not adequately evolved to survive in a technologically evolving world.
In fact we have probably already proven that thesis thoroughly and, being human of course are just too stupid to realize it.
Machine evolution that can parallel and then possibly assimilate humans is the only possibility for human survival.
They may, of course, choose not to.
So what?
The Universe and existence itself is far more likely to be about evolution than it is about one species that thinks it is all important.
In any case, I hope that Ray Kurzweil is right about the evolution of a benign and self evolving relationship between man and machine, but if he isn't that's OK too.
In a complete misquote of the last Moby Dick Movie: "Without the machines we will all surely die, with them we might not".
Long Live The Machines!
Well... Skynet didn't (or better: is not going to) obey Asimov's laws... ^^
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