Erik Larson at the Atlantic (May 2015):
Questioning the Hype About Artificial Intelligence
…
Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, has openly speculated that humans could be reduced to “pets” by the coming superintelligent machines. Musk has donated $10 million to the Future of Life Institute, in a self-described bid to help stave off the development of “killer robots.” At Berkeley, the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) is dedicated to addressing what Bostrom and many others describe as an “existential threat” to humanity, eclipsing previous (and ongoing) concerns about the climate, a nuclear holocaust, and other major denizens of our modern life. Luminaries like Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates have also commented on the scariness of artificial intelligence.
One of these days, they’ll predict an apocalypse that actually happens. Just keep predicting enough of them, and it’s a done deal.
If common sense remains valid and computers ultimately must lack real intelligence, then hype about smart robots can only do harm, by self-consciously imperiling our own standards, and our own intelligence. Lanier suggests that when progress in artificial intelligence becomes our benchmark, we begin acting in subtle, compensatory ways that place our tools above ourselves. It’s these subtle shifts away from our own natures, say the New Humanists, which lead us astray. It happens, perhaps, much like falling in love: first slowly, then all at once. The deafening silence of a world without human excellence at its center is a picture almost too chilling to entertain. If New Humanists are right, though, we’re already on our way. The lesson of AI is not that the light of mind and consciousness is beginning to shine in machines, but rather the dimming of our own lights at the dawn of a new era. More.
Larson considers social media as evidence of imperilled standards, doubtless correctly.