AI Will Not Kill Us, Says Microsoft Research Chief
January 28th, 2015Via: BBC:
Microsoft Research’s chief has said he thinks artificial intelligence systems could achieve consciousness, but has played down the threat to human life.
Eric Horvitz’s position contrasts with that of several other leading thinkers.
Last December, Prof Stephen Hawking told the BBC that such machines could “spell the end of the human race”.
Mr Horvitz also revealed that “over a quarter of all attention and resources” at his research unit were now focused on AI-related activities.
“There have been concerns about the long-term prospect that we lose control of certain kinds of intelligences,” he said.
“I fundamentally don’t think that’s going to happen.
“I think that we will be very proactive in terms of how we field AI systems, and that in the end we’ll be able to get incredible benefits from machine intelligence in all realms of life, from science to education to economics to daily life.”
Mr Horvitz heads up a team of more than 1,000 scientists and engineers at Microsoft’s research wing.
The division’s work on AI has already helped give rise to Cortana – a voice-controlled virtual assistant that runs on the Windows Phone platform and will shortly come to desktop PCs when Windows 10 is released.
Mr Horvitz said that he believed Cortana and its rivals would spur on development of the field.
“The next if not last enduring competitive battlefield among major IT companies will be artificial intelligence,” he said.
Related: Microsoft’s Bill Gates Insists AI Is a Threat
On the other hand, Bill Gates just did an AMA where he said,
“I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence. First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that, though, the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don’t understand why some people are not concerned.”
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2tzjp7/hi_reddit_im_bill_gates_and_im_back_for_my_third/