Elon Musk warns against unleashing artificial intelligence 'demon'

[Chrystal-J]

From article: Elon Musk has met a technology he doesn't like.

Musk, who promises to take humans to new heights with space and battery technologies, was especially grounded in his latest caution on artificial intelligence.
He told an audience at MIT on Friday that "we should be very careful about artificial intelligence," warning it may be "our biggest existential threat."
"With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon," he said.
"In all those stories where there's the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, it's like yeah he's sure he can control the demon," he continued, to some laughs from the audience.

Link: Elon Musk warns against unleashing artificial intelligence 'demon' - Oct. 26, 2014

 

[ivebeenshown]

What else would the "image of the beast" be, into which a false prophet could breathe life?

 

[Chrystal-J]

Never thought of that, but it's possible.

 

[MoonlessNight]

The problem with artificial intelligence is not so much the AI itself as our reactions to it. Humanity has a tendency to make idols, and it even easier to make an idol of an AI than of a statue. But Isaiah's words are just as relevant here:

8 Fear ye not, neither be ye troubled, from that time I have made thee to hear, and have declared: you are my witnesses. Is there a God besides me, a maker, whom I have not known?
9 The makers of idols are all of them nothing, and their best beloved things shall not profit them. They are their witnesses, that they do not see, nor understand, that they may be ashamed.
10 Who hath formed a god, and made a graven thing that is profitable for nothing?
11 Behold, all the partakers thereof shall be confounded: for the makers are men: they shall all assemble together, they shall stand and fear, and shall be confounded together.

The dangers of AI come when we use them as magical oracles, without considering how they make their calculations (and since we made them, we can know the general structure of their calculations, even if we cannot follow each individual calculation). But the same danger occurs even without AI and only when following instructions by hand. How many times have researchers used statistical tests or models without having the vaguest idea of what those tests or models did, but convinced themselves that they have achieved knowledge because of the complicated mathematical machinery used? And how many times have their recommendations been used to direct our policies, often for ill?


AIs are just this danger on a grander scale. But I would not call them "demons." They are less than demons. They are idols.