Arab Press

بالشعب و للشعب
Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Will AI turn humans into 'waste product'?

Will AI turn humans into 'waste product'?

A tech guru warns that robots that think for themselves may take over the world and use weapons of mass destruction to wipe out mankind. Is it time to worry?
This year, the BBC’s prestigious Reith Lectures will be delivered for the first time by a computer scientist. UK-born Stuart Russell, professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, will look at ‘Living with Artificial Intelligence’ in a series of weekly broadcasts during December.

In a trailer for the lecture series, Russell was interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today on Monday. As confirmation of the old journalistic adage that “if it bleeds, it leads,” the conversation was dominated by gloomy prognostications about what AI might be doing to our society and even more nightmarish possibilities for the future. Never mind developing machines that can learn – we need to learn from the history of new technologies to treat both hype and horror with equal scepticism.

Artificial intelligence is already in use in society. Computers can guess what we would like to watch next on YouTube, what products we might want to buy on Amazon and show us adverts based on previous internet searches on Google. More usefully, perhaps, machines can learn to identify cancerous growths on medical scans with great speed and accuracy and flag up potentially fraudulent financial transactions – something very useful when banks and other institutions perform astonishing volumes of trades constantly.

Russell believes that AI is “not working necessarily to our benefit and the revelations we’ve seen recently from Facebook suggest media companies know it is ripping societies apart. These are very simple algorithms, so the question I’ll be asking in the lectures is what happens when the algorithms become much more intelligent than they are right now.”

This is an odd way of looking at things – that algorithms rather than human politics are the problem in society right now. Of course, dumb algorithms that push social-media posts to you on the basis that “if you liked that one, you might like this one,” probably don't help in getting people out of their “echo chambers.” But people sticking with their own ‘tribe’ when it comes to politics is mostly about personal choice and unwillingness to accept that people with a different view might have a point, not the work of evil computer algorithms.

Where Russell is really concerned is when AI goes beyond task-specific applications to the possibility of general-purpose AI. Instead of setting computers up to do particular things – like churning through vast amounts of data with a particular goal and learning how to do it better and faster than humans – general-purpose AI systems would be able to take on a wide variety of tasks and make decisions for themselves.

In particular, Russell worries about autonomous weapons that “can find targets, decide which targets to attack and then go ahead and attack them, all without any human being in the loop.” He fears that these AI WMD could destroy whole cities or regions, or take out an entire ethnic group.

Russell cooperated on a startling and scary Black Mirror-style film, Slaughterbots, in 2017, showing one particularly gloomy vision of tiny, bee-like drones selecting and assassinating anyone who dares to disagree with the authorities.

But while some degree of learning and autonomy is in use already – for example, to take humans out of the dangerous business of clearing minefields – the combination of recognising individuals or groups accurately and making decisions about who and how to attack are way beyond current capabilities. As a US drone strike in Afghanistan in August – which killed 10 people, including seven children – showed, it's possible to have hi-tech, intelligence-led attacks that go horribly wrong. Moreover, if political and military leaders have few qualms about killing the innocent, why wait for fantasy AI-powered autonomous weapons when you can just carpet-bomb whole areas, whether it is Dresden in the Second World War or Cambodia in the Seventies?

The all-conquering power of AI is, as things stand, just hype. Take driverless cars. Just a few years ago, they were the Next Big Thing. Google, Apple, Tesla and more poured billions into trying to develop them. Now they’re on the back burner because the difficulties are just too great. A year ago, Uber – once dreaming of fleets of robotaxis – sold off its autonomous vehicles division. As for robots and AI taking over our jobs, at best they will be a tool to improve the productivity of humans. Using computers to do bits of our jobs could be useful, but actually replacing teachers, lawyers or drivers is a whole different ball-game.

Silicon Valley seems to have a schizophrenic attitude to its own technology. On the one hand, the importance of artificial intelligence is exaggerated. On the other hand, we have doom-mongering speculations about AI systems gradually taking control of society, leaving human beings, in Russell’s words, as so much “waste product.” In truth, AI keeps confirming that it is both extremely useful for doing specific tasks and also pretty dumb at anything beyond that.

According to Melanie Mitchell, Davis Professor of Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute, we suffer from multiple misunderstandings about AI. First, specific AI and general AI are completely different levels of difficulty. For example, getting computers to translate different languages has involved an enormous amount of work but text- and voice-based systems are getting pretty good. Getting two AI machines to hold a conversation, on the other hand, is much harder.

Second, many things that humans find easy are really difficult to automate. For example, we’re evolved to scan the world quickly, pick out distinct things and figure out what is important right now. Computers find this extremely hard. Third, humans have a rich experience of the physical world through our senses that, researchers are finding, has a significant impact on how we think. Fourth, Mitchell argues, human beings develop common sense, built on experience and practice. AI systems can chuck ever-greater amounts of processing power at problems, but struggle to replicate that. Elon Musk failed in his attempt to fully automate his Tesla factories – humans were simply irreplaceable for some tasks.

If we could cut out the boosterism about AI, we could see a useful group of technologies that can help us out in specific ways to make our lives easier. Equally, it would burst the bubble of all those catastrophists who think AI systems will take over the world. Ultimately, we’re still in control of the machines and they’re not about to replace us any time soon. With a bit of historical perspective, we can see that the fretting about AI is just the latest in a seemingly endless series of fearful spasms about new technology.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Arab Press
0:00
0:00
Close
China Criticizes US for Vetoing UN Ceasefire Resolution in Gaza
Saudi Arabia ranks first in UN index for e-government services in MENA
Israel Records 20% Drop In GDP, War In Gaza Is The Reason
Saudi Arabia's FDI Inflows Grow with New International Standards
Venture Capitals Power Up Across MENA Region
PM Modi Announces Opening Of New CBSE Office In Dubai
January Funding for MENA Startups Totals $86.5 Million
Saudi Arabia accelerates digital economy growth through Nvidia partnership
Israel unveils tunnels underneath Gaza City headquarters of UN agency for Palestinian refugees
Israel deploys new military AI in Gaza war
Egypt threatens to suspend key peace treaty if Israel pushes into Gaza border town, officials say
Saudi Arabia Warns Of A "Humanitarian Catastrophe" If Israel Moves On Rafah
US University To Shut Qatar Campus Due To "Heightened Mideast Instability"
Facebook and Instagram Ban Iran's Supreme Leader
Defense Technology Showcase Held in Riyadh
Saudi Arabia’s non-oil exports rise 2.5% to $6bn in November 2023: GASTAT
Rolls-Royce Executive Encourages Saudi Women to Tap into Their Inner 'Superhero' for Success in Defense Industry
Saudi Arabia launches National Academy of Vehicles and Cars
Saudi Tourism Minister Reveals Plan for 250,000 New Hotel Rooms by 2030
SAR to more than double eastern network passenger capacity with new trains deal
Saudi Arabia Enhances National Defense with New Partnerships
Saudi Aramco Maintains Arab Light Crude Pricing to Asia for March
NEOM Establishes New York Office to Support Investors
Saudi Wealth Fund Draws in Over $25 Billion Worth of Investments in Three Years, Al-Rumayyan Reveals
The Saudi Kingdom's Ultimatum to Israel: A Win-Win Peace with Saudi Arabia and the Arab World, or a Lose-Lose Continued Occupation and Endless Conflict
Biden condemns anti-Arab hate after WSJ opinion piece calls Dearborn ‘jihad capital’
Turkey Releases Seven Hostages Captured by Pro-Gaza Gunman
Arab Parliament Commends Women's Contributions to Societal Development
British and Hungarian Foreign Ministers visited Lebanese leaders to stress the importance of enacting UN Resolution 1701
Yemen's Houthis Say They Targeted British Merchant Vessel In Red Sea
Donald Trump Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for 'Historic' Middle East Policy
US lawmakers approve F-16 jet sale to Turkey following NATO expansion support
Saudi Arabia Climbs 25 Places in World Bank's National Statistics Indicator
Tourism Growth in Saudi Arabia Fuels Advancements in the Hospitality Industry," Says Rotana Official
Houthi Rebels Request Departure of UN Staff from Yemen, Including US and UK Personnel, within a Month
Modi Inaugurates Hindu Temple on Site of Demolished Mosque in India
Over 25,000 Deaths in Gaza Amid Israeli Offensive
Escalating Clashes in Gaza as Israel Distributes Leaflets to Assist in Locating Hostages
Turkey's First Astronaut Set to Launch for International Space Station Today
Head of Palestinian Investment Fund Warns More People May Die of Hunger Than War in Gaza
Palestinian Envoy Criticizes UK for Alleged 'Double Standards' in Policies Toward Israel
Morocco to Lead UN Human Rights Council in 2024
Is artificial intelligence the solution to cyber security threats?
Egypt has been identified as the leading military force among Arab nations and ranks 15th globally
The AI Revolution in the Workforce: CEOs at Davos Predict Major Job Cuts in 2024
Iranian Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi Receives Additional Prison Sentence
"Gazans Urge Israeli Forces to Target Hamas in Leaked Audio"
Biden States US and UK Airstrikes on Houthis Were a 'Defensive Action
Large Pro-Palestine Rally in London as Gaza Conflict Hits Day 100
South Africa Urges World Court to Halt Israeli Actions in Gaza
×