On the new season of The Future with Hannah Fry, she discovers how profit is likely coming before safety, and how little we know about what will happen.
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September 13, 2024 at 20:33 GMT+7
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Artificial intelligence has begun to exhibit early glimpses of agency. It’s an eventuality that is only now dawning on much of humanity, and one that will inexorably lead to a moment where we realize the dreams or nightmares (or something in between) of AI. Are the vast amounts of money being poured into the technology something that will yield a superintelligence beyond human control? Will it be a force for immeasurable good or a tool of self-destruction? A little bit of both?
On the first episode of the new season of The Future with Hannah Fry from Bloomberg Originals, the professor, mathematician and writer explores the promise of AI as she witnesses robots struggling with simple tasks humans take for granted. She also speaks with experts who warn that, given the trillions of dollars being spent on AI research and the even larger potential for profit, it’s unlikely the tech barons in Silicon Valley racing to cash in will prioritize safety of the species over unprecedented profit.
24:01Watch The Future with Hannah Fry: Super Intelligence
The problem with AI of course is that once humans make a machine more intelligent than themselves, keeping control may become a bit of a problem. Stuart Russell, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and research pioneer in the field, gives Fry a sobering example of where advanced AI could go wrong in spectacular fashion—a concept called “misalignment.”
“The machine is pursuing an objective and is not aligned with what we really want,” Russell explains. He uses climate change as an example, posing a theoretical assignment to an AI to solve global warming.
“What causes climate change? People,” the AI quickly divines, Russell says. “So, easy way to do that, get rid of all the people. Problem solved.”
But not everyone is so pessimistic. Melanie Mitchell, an AI expert and professor at the Santa Fe Institute, argues AI systems aren’t on a path to superintelligence and that we’re putting more faith in AI than it deserves. Learn more about this potentially existential debate on The Future with Hannah Fry.
See all episodes of The Future with Hannah Fry here.
See the latest videos from Bloomberg Originals here.