Skip to content

Comment on The Future Arrives in 2045

Comments

I don't think anyone wants actual artificial intelligence. What they want is a tool that interacts with them in a way that seems intelligent, but always does what it is told.

Intelligent things don't always do what they're told; that's what makes them intelligent. If you told someone to jump off a cliff, and they immediately did it, would you think "wow, that person was very intelligent"? Of course not. What if you tried to push them? I would expect an intelligent person to fight back.

Now replace that person with a robot. Do we really want a robot that will refuse to follow our commands? Do we really want a robot that will fight back against us? Even Asimov put self-preservation #3 in the list of rules, after following human commands. But I challenge you to think of an intelligent being that is not dangerous in some way, when threatened. I propose that this attribute is not separable from intelligence.

It seems to me that it is impossible to conceive of a truly intelligent artificial being without considering it dangerous. Bumblebees are dangerous; dogs are dangerous; people are certainly dangerous. But who is working on creating robots that are designed from day one to be dangerous to humans? I can't remember ever hearing of such a research program.

And I don't think that just "happens" when algorithms get complex enough. Not when the algorithms and even hardware are designed and built from an inherent assumption of obedience and compliance.

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.