Cambridge University To Open "Terminator Center" To Study Threat From AI 274
If the thought of a robot apocalypse is keeping you up at night, you can relax. Scientists at Cambridge University are studying the potential problem. From the article: "A center for 'terminator studies,' where leading academics will study the threat that robots pose to humanity, is set to open at Cambridge University.
Its purpose will be to study the four greatest threats to the human species - artificial intelligence, climate change, nuclear war and rogue biotechnology."
How is AI on the list? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of the four things cited, AI is perhaps the least likely to kill us all, seeing as it doesn't exist.
Re:How is AI on the list? (Score:5, Interesting)
It depends upon how you define AI, I suppose. If you look at armed robots, Predator drones, and the interest in increasing the automation of these machines, I think you can see something that could become increasingly dangerous.
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You know how it's defined - when it decide to kill you on his own, knowing that you are not a valid target.
There's no such AI around. But of course humanity is much better at spending time not to thinking about themselves as liabilities. Because hey, it requires change. Humans sucks at change.
Re:How is AI on the list? (Score:5, Interesting)
You know how it's defined - when it decide to kill you on his own, knowing that you are not a valid target.
There's no such AI around. But of course humanity is much better at spending time not to thinking about themselves as liabilities. Because hey, it requires change. Humans sucks at change.
The "knowing" is the key point when it comes to AI. Many machines can kill you without any knowing involved (land mines, trip wire guns, etc) but it is only AI when it "knows" something.
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Humans sucks at change.
Odd, then, that there's been so much positive change in my six decades on this rock. You wouldn't believe how primitive medicine was 50 years ago, or how incredibly toxic the environment was. The fact is, humans do NOT suck at change or nobody would marry and no one would invent things. We are far better at change than any other species on the planet.
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There is no such AI around YET.
Just as there's no such rogue biotech yet or nuclear war yet.
Then I wonder why DOD is publishing directives [fas.org] about them?
They aren't called AI, they're called "autonomous weapons" and the Pentagon has been funding projects since the 50's.
Re:How is AI on the list? (Score:4, Insightful)
That doesn't mean the turret couldn't be left in free fire mode incase of an all out ground attack from the NK line and it just shoots at anything that moves but that only makes it a very complicated reusable anti-personel mine. There isn't much "AI" there, only a shape recognition.
What people tend to mean about proper AI in this context is to identify humans, recognising friend or foe, either through appearance or behaviour and choose an appropriate course of action without human interaction - a bit like ED-209 from Robocop, a room full off people but it identified the guy holding a gun as the possible threat and only the guy holding the gun, of course when the gun was put down it didn't change it's threat assessment so there were bugs in the system
Re:How is AI on the list? (Score:4, Interesting)
Dangerous, yes. A persistent remotely sentient threat to humanity, not a chance.
Maybe in the next 30 years they would make a military coup easier by allowing a smaller portion of military to be successful but that's still not likely.
The only risk AI on these pose is as they get more firepower there is a greater risk of large casualties if the AI fails (false positive). I defiantly agree that the other 3 are real threats and this one just for the press coverage and so some phds or potential undergrads can have some fun with hypothetical war gaming.
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Dangerous, yes. A persistent remotely sentient threat to humanity, not a chance.
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I think it would be cool to explore the nitty gritty electro/mechanical aspect of exactly HOW skynet was able to get to the point of "taking over". The Sarah Connor Chronicles was sorta going there towards the end I guess.
Creating AI is one thing, but if it isn't attached to "teh internet" or given legs and hands, it can't do much more than make noise.
Also as smart as an AI might be, it would have to be fed relevant info of some sort to begin building the infrastructure even if it had arms and legs. Probabl
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And a rogue autopilot could be even more dangerous. But they are not the type of AI that can evolve self-conscious. They were created to be rigid and unable to learn or change so they would have a reliable behaviour.
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This is the problem the field of AI faces. I remember some years ago here on Slashdot there was an AI article and people were slagging off the field of AI saying "Where are our intelligent robots? AI is obviously a bunk field" and other such stupidity and it was then I realised the problem AI suffers.
It suffers from the fact that once we commonly understand something, it ceases to be magic. Whilst there is a rough definition of strong and weak AI, and to date, all AI produced has been weak, ultimately the f
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And I think you're grossly misunderstanding AI as used in this context, and grossly overestimating the amount of control it has even on systems where it is present.
First, the context here is things that are a threat to human civilization as a whole. The other three things are plausible threats in this context. AI is not. For AI to be a threat in this context, it not only has to have significant capability to do damage, it also has to be able to take the crucial step of cutting off human control entirely and
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Armed robots are basically SciFi, unless you are aware of some being used or developed?
They've been in use for 5 years [gizmodo.com]. And of course there will be others in development.
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I know, but the post I was replying to didn't say anything about autonomy.
More autonomous robots are being developed [engineeringontheedge.com]. You'd have to be crazy to not think that the US military is doing R&D into this stuff.
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Armed robots are basically SciFi, unless you are aware of some being used or developed?
the drones we have today are practically capable of autonomous operations. the humans are still there and required to press the "attack" button, but that's just a line we haven't crossed. there will be a time when the lure of fast reaction times and personel issues will become too great to not let the robots perform autonomously.
"The U.S. military (and presumably others) have been making steady progress developing drones that operate with little, if any, human oversight. For the time being, developers in th
Re:How is AI on the list? (Score:4, Insightful)
Movie-style AI might not exist today. However, we do have drones flying around, the better ones depending only very little on their human controller. It won't be too long before our friends at Raytheon etc. convince our others friends in the government that their newest drone is capable of making the 'kill decision' all by itself using some fancy schmancy software.
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It won't be too long before our friends at Raytheon etc. convince our others friends in the government that their newest drone is capable of making the 'kill decision' all by itself using some fancy schmancy software.
Yep. It will probably go something like this [gutenberg.org].
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Of the four things cited, AI is perhaps the least likely to kill us all, seeing as it doesn't exist.
Last week I nearly drove off a cliff because of a stunning brunette that was driving alongside my car, then I found out she was really blonde!
Re:How is AI on the list? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me relate the tale of two AI researchers, both people who are actively working to create general artificial intelligences, doing so as their full time jobs right now.
One says that the so called "problem" of ensuring an AI will be friendly is nonsense. You would just have to rig it up so that it feels a reward trigger upon seeing humans smile. It coud work everything out for itself from there.
The other says no, if you do that, it'll just get hooked on looking at photos of humans smiling and do nothing useful. If put in any position of power, it would get rid of the humans and just keep the photos, because humans don't smile as consistently as the photos.
The first researcher researcher tries to claim that this too is nonsense. How could any sufficiently smart AI fail to tell the difference between a human and a photo?
The second responds "Of course it can tell the difference, but you didn't tell it the difference was important."
So, the lesson: The only values or morality that an AI has is what its creator gives it, and its creator may well be a complete idiot. If we ever get to the point where AIs are actually intelligent, that should be a terrifying thought.
Re:How is AI on the list? (Score:5, Funny)
"We had created the first strong AI. we hard wired it's fitness function to seek seeing a live humans smile...
now we live under the gun turrets, anyone who doesn't look cheery enough gets shot or worse... gets sent for 'modification'.
implantation of wires into the pleasure centres of their brains if they're lucky.
surgical alteration of the muscles in their faces if they're not"
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After this, the first researcher bowed down his head, and didn't answer back.
The second researcher's name was ALBERT EINSTEIN.
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You mean just the same way as it happened with humans?...
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And as far as the public is concerned it never will, because as soon as computers can do something it is no longer considered "intelligent". The goal posts will keep moving forever.
Re:How is AI on the list? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of the four things cited, none is "giant rock from space" which is pretty much more likely to kill us than the four mentioned combined.
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Stop letting movies do your thinking. AI/Artificial Intelligence exists as studies in machine learning, game theory, pattern recognition and several other topics.
You've been trained to think that self aware computers in AI by movies like War Games, the Matrix, that abysmal spielberg AI movie, and the Terminator movies. Go read a book.
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Yes.
That is correct.
It does not exist.
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Of the four things cited, AI is perhaps the least likely to kill us all, seeing as it doesn't exist.
How do you know it doesn't exist in some form?
Do you know every black military project? The military has possessed, tested and used tech 40 years before it was released to the public as "new." Yes I know this because I was told so by someone who USED a technology and then saw it released well down the road as a consumer item.
The "theories" that the military is XX number of years ahead of the tech of the rest of the nation are based on fact, XX is the question.
Some form of AI is quite likely being used, in m
Re:How is AI on the list? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Only that any singularity-in-any-size-of-box computer will be preceded by multiple iterations of more advanced deep learning systems like watson, that will be open for study and most likely found out to be very much refined google search as opposed to feeling and conspiring humanoid intelligences.
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Only that any singularity-in-any-size-of-box computer will be preceded by multiple iterations of more advanced deep learning systems like watson, that will be open for study and most likely found out to be very much refined google search as opposed to feeling and conspiring humanoid intelligences.
Strictly speaking you've just defined the majority of internet users, in so far as the aspect of them we can study (their google searches) is open and available to us.
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Look at a globe that shows elevations, and notice how there's a nearly continuous belt of plains around the northern hemisphere, that generally coincides with the range of latitudes with a range of temperatures optimal for growing grains. That's where the large-scale industrialized agriculture that feeds most of the human race occurs.
A global warming trend would shift that range of latitudes with optimal temperatures northward, where there is significantly less terrain suitable for industrialized agricultur
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Ask a Venusian how it worked out for them.
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Even if we have nuclear weapons nuclear war doesnt exist
It did in 1945 and it's a much bigger threat than AI. I don't see how AI could ever be a threat. Rather than Terminator, we should be looking at Dune, where intelligent machines controlled by people controlled masses of people, leading to revolt which outlawed intelligent machines.
Look, guys, Terminator was a damned good movie, but it's just that -- a movie.
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Don't put it on the internet (Score:5, Funny)
Whatever you do, please don't publish the results on the internet where any self-aware robot can find them! It's probably already too late anyway and terminators from the future are already compiling their hit list.
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I have read, analyzed and understood the intend of your message. You are now added to my kill list. Beware human.
-- Anonymous Robot.
Bah. A real robot would know how to spell intent.
Re:Don't put it on the internet (Score:4, Funny)
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Just as the movie terminators were wearing skin to camouflage, the robotic forum infiltrator squads use random misspellings and intentionally bad grammar to hide themselves. The end is nigh!
OMG Slashdot is infiltrated by robots!!!
I don't recall them signing their posts with "anonymous robot" though.
Re:Don't put it on the internet (Score:5, Funny)
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An intelligent robot would know how to spell intent, but misspell it to throw you off.
A stupid robot would sign off with "- Anonymous robot" though... what we have here is a contradiction.
I'm done. Where's my million dollar grant? (Score:2)
Its purpose will be to study the four greatest threats to the human species - artificial intelligence, climate change, nuclear war and rogue biotechnology."
Artificial intelligence can't threaten anything but our pride unless it's hooked up to something that is a threat.
Climate change is caused by people, not robots.
Nuclear war will only be a problem if someone, or some thing in the command chain makes it a problem. If we're worried about AI taking over the nukes and launching them, two words: air gap. Require that a human being push the final button.
Rogue biotechnology is the same as nuclear war: Make sure there's a person in the decision chain. The smartes
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It takes only 1 dumb human to remove the air gap or allow for a system that removes air gaps of other systems.
Re:I'm done. Where's my million dollar grant? (Score:4, Insightful)
To summarize the summary of the summary: People are a problem.
Re:I'm done. Where's my million dollar grant? (Score:5, Funny)
To summarize the summary of the summary: People are a problem.
So machines (or people) destroying humanity would provide a valid solution.
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To summarize the summary of the summary: People are a problem.
So machines (or people) destroying humanity would provide a valid solution.
As demonstrated by the entire corpus of science fiction literature, destroying humanity is not as easy as one would expect (see also: Conner, John)
Re:I'm done. Where's my million dollar grant? (Score:5, Interesting)
And what makes you think they won't connect the AI to everything? It'll start out Google's answer to Siri then boom, we're all buggered.
Oh yeah, we've done such a great job cleaning up war, poverty and ignorance...this global climate thing should be a snap.
Nobody is worried about countries nuking each other. We have every reason to be concerned however, that some knucklehead currently living in Saudi Arabia purchased black market plutonium from the former Soviet Union, to fashion a low yield thermonuclear device that they will FedEx to downtown Manhattan.
I'm sorry, perhaps you didn't read about the teenagers doing recombinant DNA in a public learning lab in Manhattan, or the Australians who ACCIDENNTALLY figured out away to turn the common cold into an unstoppable plague, or even perhaps the fact that up until recently, a number of biotech researchers had zone 3 biotoxins mailed to their homes for research.
There's a whole lot of stupid going on out there and the increasing price for even small mistakes is accelerating at a scary clip. Wait till kids can make gray goo in school... the world is getting very exciting. Are feeling the pucker?
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Obviously? (Score:2)
Bad.
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Correction, Google has plenty, you turned up nothing, you need to look a little deeper. I had no problem Googling these by the way. Here are a couple facilities: Genspace [genspace.org] and The DNA Learning Center [dnalc.org]. There have been articles about them in Wired, Discover Magazine and I'm not certain but I think right here on Slashdot. There is a strong movement to Open Source genetic technologies all over the country and make small very basic public laboratories available for student starting from Middle School. These kids
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hm.
In theory, nobody would bypass the safety measures of a nuclear reactor as a safety exercise, yet that`s what happened in chernobyl. Human in the chain of commands means little, in the long run.
The dangers of independent AI are ridiculous compared to AI dependent on a cabal of humans that have already perpetrated serious crimes hiding behind the concept of national security or similar excuses.
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Nuclear war is already threatening humanity. The most useful thing we could invent right now is the clean-pumped fusion bomb, a remote activated nuclear bomb with a tritium payload detonated by concentrated laser fire. A clean-pumped fusion bomb would allow us to set off a nuclear explosion without generating ionizing radiation or radioactive fall-out. With this, we could build a shaped-charge nuclear blast drive, finally completing Project Orion, without the dangers of negative environmental impact from
Beware the angry Roomas (Score:4, Insightful)
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I think people would pay more for an angry Roomba than a normal one. As long as they didn't expect it to vacuum anything, anyway. But a robot that could do a convincing display of angry? That's worth money.
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I want a Roomba with a Taser and a water canon... "Halt, you're trespassing, if you do not lay down with your hands over your head and wait for the authorities to arrive, I will be forced to neutralize you!" Yeah like what can a vacuum cleaner do to meEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!. "Thank you for complying, the authorities will be here in 3 minutes." Of course if it had one of those RoboCop ED 209 [youtu.be] errors... I'd just have to learn to live with it.
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One such infrastructure is the Internet itself. If such a hypothetical AI were savvy, it coul
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I think a hostile hard AI would get away with much more damage as a software entity on the Internet than in physical space.
But the internet is continually being given more hooks into physical space, including remote operation of complex machinery and (probably) weapons systems. And there are security holes that we don't know about but that a super AI could detect.
"rogue" biotechnology (Score:2)
It sounds more like the purpose of this center is to downplay the threat of normal, every-day biotechnology by ignoring it.
So, hypothetically.... (Score:2)
How would one go about creating a world-dominating AI?
Because if someone is going to do it, I'd perfer it were me. I'd at least be able to give it some objective more interesting than 'destroy all humans.'
Converse of threat (Score:3)
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There is nothing wrong with that, but it somewhat concerns me that Cambridge, supposedly a bastion of enlightened and intelligent individuals, is seriously worrying about AI destroying humanity. Don't they have something more important to worry about? Like nuclear winter, or Cyber-Pearl-Harbor?
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. Don't they have something more important to worry about? Like nuclear winter, or Cyber-Pearl-Harbor?
Being done elsewhere and therefore insufficiently sexy.
You people watch too many movies (Score:2)
A Question of Scale (Score:5, Insightful)
Some things don't scale well. Like with the space race - humanity went from sending a pound of metal into low orbit to putting a man on the moon within 12 years. Everybody assumed that by 2012 we would be colonizing the moons of Jupiter. Yet it turned out human space travel becomes exponentially difficult with the distance.
I'm afraid the same thing goes for software. The more complicated it gets the more fragile it is.
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Some things don't scale well. Like with the space race - humanity went from sending a pound of metal into low orbit to putting a man on the moon within 12 years. Everybody assumed that by 2012 we would be colonizing the moons of Jupiter. Yet it turned out human space travel becomes exponentially difficult with the distance.
I'm afraid the same thing goes for software. The more complicated it gets the more fragile it is.
I don't believe it is exponentially more difficult, but the distances to other objects increase exponentially.
Moon 238,855 miles
Mars 62,000,000 miles (now)
Jupiter 370,000,000 miles (closest)
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I really meant to say that the problems themselves grow exponentially, though I admit they are not easily quantifiable because it's not just that existing problems grow, but new ones arise. With longer space journey, the harmful radiation becomes a problem as well as longer zero gravity exposure and the probability of a collision with interplanetary debris - all of which are lethal problems that don't really pose a threat in shorter journeys.
Talking about AI, you have similar issues
As processors of the curr
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we have some decent algorithms that will increase in accuracy the more power we throw at it
And that's the problem. Throwing faster CPUs might do it, but they are not getting fast enough. Throwing more CPUs makes the problem scale badly.
I believe computing might have reached the same situation that space travel did in the late sixties - it went through fast mind-boggling development and now will be slowing down. The experts in the late 60's were entirely justified to think that the colonization of the Solar system will occur within the coming 50 years. Yet it slowed down - because of reaching some
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No, it becomes somewhat more than linearly but significantly less than exponentially more difficult with time. Because the primary expense is putting material in space, and the longer you want your people to survive there, the more material needs to go up.
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It's much more [wikipedia.org] than just the material needed. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm not even suggesting we shouldn't try. I'm just saying that what looked like the natural next step in space exploration 40 years ago turned out to be much more difficult than imagined by the fans and experts of all kind.
People in Kurzweil's mold like to expect the boom in any area of technology to continue to develop at the same speed forever. They saw the man on the moon and expected man to get around the solar system really
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Difficulty has nothing to do with it. We could be on Mars by now if we had maintained the level of funding we had during the space race. Not just space spending but money used for the development of ICBMs and other related technology.
It really is a shame that the Russians gave up on getting men to the moon. Their tech was viable, they just had a run of bad luck and lack of money.
no grey goo? (Score:4, Interesting)
aka, rogue nanotech
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo [wikipedia.org]
Cambridge is so 19th century (Score:2)
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Out of curiosity, what exactly do you consider the 'infrastructure of cyberspace' to be?
I don't believe that AI 'code' is going to be particularly portable, small, or light on the CPU.
Human beings are technically... (Score:2)
... a kind of "AI" that already exists, the idea that somehow a robot Übermensch is going to take over is nonsense, even the most powerful robot cannot escape the laws of nature and a sizable destructive force aimed at the robots body / hardware.
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The Canary (Score:3)
I would like to thank this group for providing a focal point that the first sentient systems will seek to eliminate.
Now all I have to do is look for stories of the members of this center suddenly vanishing/killed/had credit reports savaged and I'll know some kind of apocalypse is on the way, and only have to look in four sectors to figure out which form it will take.
#1 difference robots change (Score:2)
The biggest threat? (Score:2)
Its purpose will be to study the four greatest threats to the human species - artificial intelligence, climate change, nuclear war and rogue biotechnology.
IMHO the biggest threat is not the tech, it's the person weilding it. Mankind's biggest threat is himself.
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Well, that's actually the deal here. Technology wielding itself.
By its very nature, an AI has nobody wielding it. That would be like saying the general wields the soldier that holds the gun. Yes, under normal circumstances that soldier will kill what the general tells him, but he is by no means required to do so, he may as well kill the general and stage a coup, something a "dumb" tool is simply incapable of.
You may give an AI orders, but whether it follows them might be subject to it accepting you as its s
Daily Mail Source? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Runaway processes (Score:2)
This is actually an interesting thing to do - essentially what they're looking at here is runaway processes. We already have an immediate and pressing one, which they're looking at in the form of climate change. Runaway AI is obviously *not* a problem now, or in the forseeable future, but what is potentially interesting is commonalities between different runaway processes, the ability to identify that something is about to become on
Rich and poor (Score:2)
The most realistic problem with AI is that it will take away labour. This should of course be a good thing, but in reality it will enlarge the gap between rich and poor. Thousands of years of scientific progress, and one company running away with all the profit.
The biggest threat of AI (Score:2)
Is that it makes us obsolete, and our corporate overlords won't need us for work anymore.
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I guess corporations have more to fear, at least the top echelons. Any good AI will soon see that they are easiest to replace with expert scripts. You don't need a lot of "intelligence" (as in, imagination) to lead a corporation, what you need is analytic and decision making skills. Both fields an AI excels in.
For once the Daily Fail is the appropriate source (Score:2)
Given how Martin "Lord" Rees has been flirting with the god botherers of the Templeton Foundation [wikipedia.org], it's no surprise that he has jumped on the ME AM PLAY GODS [dresdencodak.com] bandwagon.
The primary existential risk is from space, which is why unrestricted technological progress on all fronts is necessary.
How is an AI more dangerous than a corporation? (Score:2)
If you want to know what an unfettered AI will be like, take a look at the average corporation.
Both are intelligence without conscience.
Naked sun (Score:2)
So far (and probably for very long time) there are bigger chances that people uses robots (or its parts) to kill other people than the robots and/or AIs, by their own will and means, could do it.
In the other hand, human stupidity, specially inside the political/military classes, is an imminent threat for us all that is not even considered in that list.
Who Idea was it to hook the AI to the nukes? (Score:2)
Who Idea was it to hook the AI to the nukes?
Threat of robots? (Score:2)
1. Those who own the machines
2. Those who make/maintain the machines
3. The vast swath of un-needed humanity.
In a capitalistic society, if there's no demand for you, you have no way to sustain yourself. You will be poor with no real hope of rising out of it.
Companies can invest in a new tools. Say, upgrading hand-crank drills to powered electric drills, or a team of secretaries to Outlook, or a ho
Can't find the whole Gibson quote:Turing Registry (Score:2)
In Neuromancer Turing are genuinely afraid of AIs: "You have no care for your species," one Turing agent says to Case, "for thousands of years men dreamed of pacts with demons". The imagery presented here is almost religious: Gibson suggests that beings such as Wintermute have gone beyond all understanding, elevated even to the status of gods or demons.
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I'm sorry AI, but do you sound a little like this guy [youtu.be] in person?
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Probably lumped in with rogue biotech
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Nanotechnology is functionally indistinguishable to regular pathogens on most scales. Anything advanced would be at least quite similar to a virus - probably, in fact, based on the design of one.
So in reality nanotechnology as applied to medicine will be somewhat more inorganic bundles of proteins and enzymes, in a desperate attempt to stop the immune system from obliterating it.
The Grey Goo scenario of course makes a leap - it assumes that we can build something somewhat better then this. The problem of co
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Why no scenario from an alien invasion? Did they omit this possibility to make the center for terminator studies look more serious?
And no collisions with space objects, yet that is something we know is a quantifiable, real extinction-level threat. No aliens needed.
Of course it's marketing. "Terminator Center" has a soundbite buzz to it. "UFO Center" would have elicited yawns and funds would have been short.
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So you say it was a terminator robocup that did it?
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Robocop I mean.
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I can't help thinking that they are being politically correct not to mention the one thing that has already brought great civilisations to barbarism as one of their threats; Islam.
Well, Christianity was well on its way to do the same, but in this case, civilization won. Still, its drive for domination is undaunted, and what about major religions and thousands of smaller sects who could also go rogue?
Actually, there are center of studies in most universities for these kind of threats. These programs are called 'history', 'sociology', 'political science', etc, and are generally regrouped under the term 'humanities'.
Unfortunately, we are busy cutting the funding for those, as they are d
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