Scientists warn that work on the creation of artificial intelligence may get out of control in the near future
We have just experienced an internet revolution that has changed our way of life. And on the threshold is already a technology that can turn our world upside down again. This is a revolution in the field of robotics. Today there are about 1.6 million robots in the world. They are mainly used in industry. But in the next 10-15 years, a real boom is expected in the production of electronic assistants for home and personal use. Experts believe that in the next 5 years more than 30 million of these robots will be sold around the world, capable of providing people with many useful services. The leaders in the development of such machines are Japan and South Korea, which invested $ 2.4 billion in these projects.
Most likely, domestic robots will not look like humans. The market is more in demand for technologies such as “smart home”, where electronics will take full care of their owners. Or a self-driving car developed by Google Corporation. But scientists believe that already now we can lay the foundations of artificial intelligence, which may eventually get out of control. This opinion on the pages of the English edition of the Daily Express was expressed by Dr. Amnon Eden from the University of Essex. He is the project leader for the analysis of the potential disruptive impact of artificial intelligence. According to him, the governments of countries that invest huge amounts of money in robotics underestimate the risks.
“If we don’t worry about control over artificial intelligence today, then tomorrow may not come,” says Dr. Eden. - In the future, the plot of the famous blockbuster "Terminator" may well become a reality, when robots got out of control and declared war on humanity. We are now at the “point of no return”. If we pass it, we will no longer have a chance to fix something retroactively.
Nick Bostrom, a professor at Oxford University, shares this opinion. He heads the Institute for the Future of Humanity and is known as the author of a study on the most likely scenarios for the extinction of our species. Nick believes that loading consciousness into a computer will begin earlier than human-level artificial intelligence is created. This symbiosis can give the pioneer individual intelligence of a superhuman level. This is fraught with the usurpation of power and the subordination of humanity to someone's egoistic will.
“The society needs guarantees in case of such a turn of events,” Bostom said. - And we are facing in the policy of a legal vacuum. Everyone is interested in a quick result and few people think about the consequences. But experts know that the cycles of self-improvement in the field of computer technology happen so quickly that people no longer have time to keep track of them. Let me give you a simple example. Let's say a supercomputer is tasked with keeping people healthy. He knows that hardening is good for health, although not all people like to do it. Artificial intelligence through a cloud service gains access to heating systems all over the world and turns them off! What if it seems to him that we have become too pampered and lazy? Then the Terminator will decide to create extreme conditions for us to "shake things up"!
In addition, scientists believe that the spread of robots will lead not only to an industrial but also a social revolution. After all, then hard work will be abolished. Only highly qualified creative people will be able to get a job. And what can simple workers do? Get benefits and play dominoes? In general, these helluva lot of smart machines need eye and eye.
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Dmitry Teteryukov, Skoltech professor: "You should not be afraid of robots, but hackers"
What do our specialists think about this? We turned to Dmitry Teteryukov, one of the best Russian experts in the field of robotics. He received his doctorate in Information Technology from the University of Tokyo. And now he runs the laboratory of space robots and the laboratory of wearable media technologies at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech).
Dmitry, how justified are the fears that robots will still enslave us?
- If you noticed, we are already dependent on electronic assistants. People cannot imagine their life without gadgets. The emergence of robots is the next stage of addiction. Probably after a while we will not be able to do without a robot either. But people are not stupid enough to give robots the ability to uncontrollably control some vital processes. People put intelligence in robots, so it is enough to prescribe a system of security levels there. More danger comes not from robots, but from hackers. If they break into some system, let's say a military one, we will have big problems.
But there are self-developing robots. Can they come up with the idea of world domination themselves?
- In order to conquer the world, you need a motive. And robots are devoid of human desires. Self-developing programs are already being put into machines. But they are limited to improvement in the solution of some practical problem. We are too anticipating events. Man tries to replace routine physical labor with robots. When robots can solve creative problems, then people will have to think about the meaning of life. But this is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future.