Food for Thought #4 : AI, the BIG question, how should we react to it? Part 2

This week's Food for Thought will provide a bit of balance to last weeks that expressed the concerns for AI particularly if in the wrong hands. This week we focus on the positive aspects of AI and how it can help us improve our lives. This article, from Intel, apologies it is  a bit of an Intel advert, however, does give ways in which artificial intelligence is good for society. The article has embedded 3 videos, the first of 35 minutes gives an overall view and is very interesting and will give you a much deeper view of where the positive aspects of AI can impact society, such as banking, sports (techniques, injury prevention), arts, personalized cancer treatment and farming. The other two videos are snapshots, 30 secs and 2 minutes of farming logs and cancer treatment that are mentioned in the longer video.

How to get empowered, not overpowered, by AI (17 minutes)

"Many artificial intelligence researchers expect AI to outsmart humans at all tasks and jobs within decades, enabling a future where we're restricted only by the laws of physics, not the limits of our intelligence. MIT physicist and AI researcher Max Tegmark separates the real opportunities and threats from the myths, describing the concrete steps we should take today to ensure that AI ends up being the best -- rather than worst -- thing to ever happen to humanity." Max Tegmark is the founder of Future of Life Institute and most definitely sees the glass half full not empty. He sees the future as being defined by a wisdom race, and as mentioned last week, we cannot afford our wisdom regarding AI to be formed from mistakes and reactive corrections, at MIT this approach is called safety engineering. He goes on to address the elephant in the room; the issue of values and goals, by asking the important question of whose values and where do we want to go with AI, what is really our objective?

My conclusion for what it is worth form all the reading and videos I have watched, is that AI does pose a potential threat if developed without careful thought and for the wrong reasons. It is inevitable that there will be a time in the not so distant future when we create super intelligent machines, by at the latest 2040, and this will seriously impact human societies. It will be up to us how we face this future and accept that we are no longer the smartest or most intelligent things on this planet. The challenge is without doubt going to be developing AI for the right reasons, controlling greed and human ambition, avoiding an AI arms race, so that we can create the best ethical and moral values for AI that will ensure a peaceful future in which humans and AI coexistence along side each other.