AI: fears of 'playing God'

Abstract

Man's desire to build something in his own image has a long literary history. From the animated statues of Greek myths, to the clay Golem of Jewish folklore, to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, alchemists, mystics and mad scientists have long been engaged in the quest for artificial sentience. Google has spearheaded this drive with a particular focus on start-ups specialising in 'deep learning', a sub-branch of machine learning that excels in areas considered crucial to the development of with Al, such as computer vision, speech recognition and natural language processing. But with Facebook announcing the creation of an Al lab in 2013, IBM making steady progress with its Watson Al system, and both Microsoft and Chinese search giant Baidu heavily investing in Al, competition in the field is heating up. The Al arms race has understandably caught the attention of the media and, as is often the case with game-changing technologies, many have been quick to foresee doom. Concerns over the potential existential threat to humankind posed by super-intelligent Al have been aired by influential voices including physicist Stephen Hawking and the SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk, who recently announced a £10m donation to fund research into making Al safe.