Make AI Beneficial to Humanity and Prevent it from Taking Over, says Experts letter
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a popular topic of public conversation. It all started since SpaceX and Tesla chief Elon Musk, and Physicist Stephen Hawking warned against creating an AI system that can think on their own. Now the experts in the field of AI research are coming together to sign an open letter to pledge for the creation of AI that can be controlled by humans and is beneficial to our lives.
The letter was released by the Future of Life Institute (FLI) which is a volunteer-only research organization. It focuses on potential risks from the development of human-level Artificial Intelligence. The founders of the institute include Jaan Tallin, who is the co-founder of Skype and “Mad” Max Tegmark, who is an MIT professor known for his unorthodox ideas. The Scientific Advisory Board of the Institute includes folks such as Morgan Freeman, Alan Alda, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and some other great minds. So when the letter comes from people who are held in high honor in science, the letter gains credibility and needs to be taken seriously.
The letter is signed by the top experts in the field including Prof. Hawking and Elon Musk
In essence, the letter asks researchers to put more emphasis on the creation of an AI system which helps humanity but can also be controlled by humanity. AI-based systems such as voice recognition and self-driving cars are close to being accepted by the masses, at this juncture, it’s important to understand the potential challenges it might pose.
The team at FLI has also attached a research document which highlights the priorities in AI research. The paper shows the multitude of uses of AI and how it can be robust as well as beneficial to humanity. The document encourages the fields of law, philosophy, economics, computer security and other fields of AI to be involved in interdisciplinary collaboration to set the priorities for AI research.
Several AI based system such as autonomous cars are reaching the masses, so it’s important to research on potential challenges of the thechnology in the future.
The signatories of the letter are also some of the prominent folks in science. A number of professors MIT, Oxford, Harvard and other premier institutions have signed the letter. Also, several researchers from the industry, such as experts from IBM’s Watson Supercomputer team and Microsoft research have showed their support to the letter.
Artificial Intelligence is already involved in many aspects of our lives such as speech recognition, translation and is expected to be more intertwined with our lives. It is important to put heavy focus on the topic and have a public conversation about it. There have been warning’s about the potential fallout of these systems, and they may end up taking charge over their human masters someday. Experts agree that a framework needs to be established to prevent a probable future that looks like something out of the Terminator or Matrix films.
