quotations about artificial intelligence
AI, which will likely get to AGI (artificial general intelligence) by being programmed to self-improve, wouldn't see "human-level intelligence" as some important milestone--it's only a relevant marker from our point of view--and wouldn't have any reason to "stop" at our level.... It's pretty obvious that it would only hit human intelligence for a brief instant before racing onwards to the realm of superior-to-human intelligence.
TIM URBAN
"The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence", Wait But Why, January 22, 2015
If [Elon] Musk is the Cassandra of artificial intelligence -- a pooh-poohed prophet, helplessly predicting the destruction of proverbial Troy -- many scientists, in contrast, appear more than happy to wave in AI's gleaming, giant horse. Right now, our friends at the Pentagon are reportedly piecing together a battalion of fighting robots. Ray Kurzweil, an author and futurist who has long and enthusiastically predicted the ultimate merger of man and machine, now works as a director of engineering at Google -- a company, as the Guardian reports, that is diligently "working on an artificial intelligence similar to those portrayed in movies." Sounds great, until you remember that many of those movies are actually kind of scary. One exception -- and perhaps an early indicator of humanity's growing acceptance of our nascent robot overlords -- was 2013's Her, an AI drama that features a lonely, sensitive Joaquin Phoenix falling in love with a whip-smart computer operating system, voiced by the sultry Scarlett Johansson.
HEATHER WILHELM
"Should Humans Fear Artificial Intelligence", Dallas Morning News, Nov. 28, 2014
Despite how it's portrayed in books and movies, artificial intelligence is not a synthetic brain floating in a case of blue liquid somewhere. It is an algorithm -- a mathematical equation that tells a computer what functions to perform.... In the world of AI, the Holy Grail is to discover the single algorithm that will allow machines to understand the world -- the digital equivalent of the Standard Model that lets physicists explain the operations of the universe.
JEFF GOODELL
"Inside the Artificial Intelligence Revolution: A Special Report, Pt. 1", Rolling Stone, February 29, 2016
Today's AI fills the computational gaps in human ability, and where computers fail to exercise executive function, humans are standing by to hold the flight controls, a symbiotic relationship and an augmentation of human endeavor that undermines the tale perpetuated by those with a flair for the dramatic. Guarding against a robotic uprising is prudent, but such Terminator-esque imagery distracts from the positive influence of today's AI. Climate change, rising sea levels, unsustainable population growth, pollution, Kanye West, disease, war, greed and willful ignorance could well combine forces to end humanity, but if AI is to have a role in that play, it's not the role of bad guy. It's that of a beacon that guides Earth to safety.
COLIN WOOD
"Grounding AI: Artificial Intelligence is Closer -- and Less Awesome -- than Most Realize", Government Technology, January 20, 2016
The essence of artificial intelligence is massive, intuitive computing power: machines so smart that they can learn and become even smarter. If that sounds creepy, you are overthinking the concept. The machines are becoming quicker and more nimble, not sentient. There is no impending threat to humanity from computers that become bored and plot our doom. HAL, the computer villain from "2001: A Space Odyssey," is fictional.
EDITORIAL BOARD
"Artificial intelligence isn't the scary future. It's the amazing present.", Chicago Tribune, January 1, 2017
AI is already part of the operations within many companies we interact with every day, from Apple's Siri to how Uber dispatches drivers to the way Facebook arranges its Newsfeed. In fact, Facebook is making research into AI a priority, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently stating that one of his goals this year is to "code" a personal assistant to "help run his life."
JULIA BOORSTIN
"It's too late! Artificial intelligence is already everywhere", CNBC, January 26, 2016
If there is a way of guaranteeing that superior artificial intellects will never harm human beings, then such intellects will be created. If there is no way to have such a guarantee, then they will probably be created nevertheless.
NICK BOSTROM
attributed, "The superhero of artificial intelligence: can this genius keep it in check?", The Guardian, February 16, 2016
Can we design AI systems whose goals do not conflict with ours so that we are sure to be happy with they way they behave? This is far from easy -- after all, stories with a genie and three wishes often end with a third wish to undo the first two.
STUART RUSSELL
"Should We Fear Supersmart Robots?", Scientific American, June 2016
This is just the beginning as AI becomes a new member of the team. And visionary HR leaders will increasingly consider chatbots another co-worker, helping to orient and train them, and assisting the rest of the team in understanding how to work with them. The end result will be more time for employees to do what makes them uniquely human such as: complex problem solving, critical thinking, and creativity, the top three skills deemed essential By the World Economic Forum.
JEANNE MEISTER
"AI Plus Human Intelligence Is The Future Of Work", Forbes, January 11, 2018
The rise of smart machines is unlike any other technological revolution because what is ultimately at stake here is the very idea of humanness -- we may be on the verge of creating a new life form, one that could mark not only an evolutionary breakthrough, but a potential threat to our survival as a species.
JEFF GOODELL
"Inside the Artificial Intelligence Revolution: A Special Report, Pt. 1", Rolling Stone, February 29, 2016
What's undeniable is how the possibility of AI stirs the imagination of the public. This is evident in the science fiction and entertainment we consume. We may have strong AI in a couple of years, or it might take a couple of centuries. What's certain is that we're unlikely to ever give up on the pursuit.
CAMERON COWARD
"The Future of Artificial Intelligence", Hackaday, February 13, 2017
Artificial intelligence is a big buzzword for 2017. Which I just hate because I'm barely hanging onto my natural intelligence, let alone buddying up to an unseen smarty pants who can order a taxi or a pizza or a pizza to eat in a taxi if I just tell it to.
CELIA RIVENBARK
"In 2017, artificial intelligence is horning in on the realm of advice", Star News Online, December 31, 2016
In our own time, AI is spreading into all the various spheres of our lives, and there is tension and great concern about its impact. We are confused by dueling claims that AI will eliminate jobs or create new ones; that it will eliminate bias or perpetuate it and make it harder to identify; that it will lead us to longer, happier lives -- or to extinction.
IRINA RAICU
"Artificial intelligence is forcing us to work harder to define human intelligence -- and to fight to defend it", recode, December 19, 2017
Sci-fi loves to depict military AIs as malign killer minds or robots. But the truth is more subtle and more terrifying -- and it's happening right now.
KENNETH PAYNE
"Artificial intelligence is about to revolutionise warfare. Be afraid", New Scientist, September 12, 2018
One can imagine such technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand. Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all.
STEPHEN HAWKING
"Transcendence looks at the implications of artificial intelligence -- but are we taking AI seriously enough?", The Independent, May 1, 2014
Pattern recognition and association make up the core of our thought. These activities involve millions of operations carried out in parallel, outside the field of our consciousness. If AI appeared to hit a brick wall after a few quick victories, it did so owing to its inability to emulate these processes.
DANIEL CREVIER
AI: The Tumultuous History of the Search for Artificial Intelligence
AI is not the science of building artificial people. It's not the science of understanding human intelligence. It's not even the science of trying to build artifacts that can imitate human behavior well enough to fool someone that the machine is human, as proposed in the famous Turing test ... AI is the science of making machines do tasks that humans can do or try to do ... you could argue ... that much of computer science and engineering is included in this definition.
JAMES F. ALLEN
AI Magazine, Winter 1998
It really doesn't matter if artificial intelligence is distracting us from whatever you think the "real" problem is. It's coming anyway.
KEVIN DRUM
"Artificial Intelligence Is Coming Whether You Like It Or Not", Mother Jones, February 6, 2017
Almost every time people have played with the idea of an AI and what it will look like, and what it means for it to be scary, it's been tremendously anthropomorphized. You have this thing -- it comes, it walks at you, and it sounds like you're probably going to die, or it made it very clear that there's some chance your life is in jeopardy. The thing that scares me the most about that is not the likelihood that in the next five years something like this will happen to us, but the likelihood that it will not. Over the course of the next five years, as companies continue to get better and better at building these technologies, the public at large will not understand what it is that is being done with their data, what they're giving away, and how they should be scared of the ways that AI is already playing in and with their lives and information.
MARAN NELSON
"How science fiction is training us to ignore the real threats posed by AI", The Verge, June 20, 2018
I envision some years from now that the majority of search queries will be answered without you actually asking. It'll just know this is something that you're going to want to see.
RAY KURZWEIL
interview, Singularity Hub, Jan. 10, 2013