quotations about artificial intelligence
The main lesson of thirty-five years of AI research is that the hard problems are easy and the easy problems are hard. The mental abilities of a four-year-old that we take for granted -- recognizing a face, lifting a pencil, walking across a room, answering a question -- in fact solve some of the hardest engineering problems ever conceived.... As the new generation of intelligent devices appears, it will be the stock analysts and petrochemical engineers and parole board members who are in danger of being replaced by machines. The gardeners, receptionists, and cooks are secure in their jobs for decades to come.
STEVEN PINKER
The Language Instinct
Can we design AI systems whose goals do not conflict with ours so that we are sure to be happy with they way they behave? This is far from easy -- after all, stories with a genie and three wishes often end with a third wish to undo the first two.
STUART RUSSELL
"Should We Fear Supersmart Robots?", Scientific American, June 2016
If [Elon] Musk is the Cassandra of artificial intelligence -- a pooh-poohed prophet, helplessly predicting the destruction of proverbial Troy -- many scientists, in contrast, appear more than happy to wave in AI's gleaming, giant horse. Right now, our friends at the Pentagon are reportedly piecing together a battalion of fighting robots. Ray Kurzweil, an author and futurist who has long and enthusiastically predicted the ultimate merger of man and machine, now works as a director of engineering at Google -- a company, as the Guardian reports, that is diligently "working on an artificial intelligence similar to those portrayed in movies." Sounds great, until you remember that many of those movies are actually kind of scary. One exception -- and perhaps an early indicator of humanity's growing acceptance of our nascent robot overlords -- was 2013's Her, an AI drama that features a lonely, sensitive Joaquin Phoenix falling in love with a whip-smart computer operating system, voiced by the sultry Scarlett Johansson.
HEATHER WILHELM
"Should Humans Fear Artificial Intelligence", Dallas Morning News, Nov. 28, 2014
Pattern recognition and association make up the core of our thought. These activities involve millions of operations carried out in parallel, outside the field of our consciousness. If AI appeared to hit a brick wall after a few quick victories, it did so owing to its inability to emulate these processes.
DANIEL CREVIER
AI: The Tumultuous History of the Search for Artificial Intelligence
The intelligence of AI is often interpreted as mirroring human capabilities, but the scale of data potentially ... places analysis well beyond human capabilities.
JOHN CLARK
"Why Artificial Intelligence is the answer to the greatest threat of 2017, cyber-hacking", The Independent, January 9, 2017
The rise of smart machines is unlike any other technological revolution because what is ultimately at stake here is the very idea of humanness -- we may be on the verge of creating a new life form, one that could mark not only an evolutionary breakthrough, but a potential threat to our survival as a species.
JEFF GOODELL
"Inside the Artificial Intelligence Revolution: A Special Report, Pt. 1", Rolling Stone, February 29, 2016
AI, which will likely get to AGI (artificial general intelligence) by being programmed to self-improve, wouldn't see "human-level intelligence" as some important milestone--it's only a relevant marker from our point of view--and wouldn't have any reason to "stop" at our level.... It's pretty obvious that it would only hit human intelligence for a brief instant before racing onwards to the realm of superior-to-human intelligence.
TIM URBAN
"The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence", Wait But Why, January 22, 2015
The key issue as to whether or not a non-biological entity deserves rights really comes down to whether or not it's conscious.... Does it have feelings?
RAY KURZWEIL
USA Today, Aug. 19, 2007
If there is a way of guaranteeing that superior artificial intellects will never harm human beings, then such intellects will be created. If there is no way to have such a guarantee, then they will probably be created nevertheless.
NICK BOSTROM
attributed, "The superhero of artificial intelligence: can this genius keep it in check?", The Guardian, February 16, 2016
As we deploy more and give more responsibilities to artificial agents, risks of malfunction that have negative consequences are increasing.
PHILIPPE PASQUIER
"Exploring the risks of artificial intelligence", Tech Crunch, March 21, 2016
Artificial Intelligence is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it allows us to create intelligent artifacts with human-like perception and cognition. On the other hand, it accelerates people's heavy dependence on artifacts.
MAX BRAMER
Artificial Intelligence: An International Perspective
AI is not a passing trend. It's been with us for decades and is here to stay. As technology and science improve, so will the algorithms behind AI and the hardware that's running it. However, I still believe it must improve before it can become an inseparable and integral part of our lives.
JURICA DUJMOVIC
"What's holding back artificial intelligence? Americans don't trust it", Market Watch, March 30, 2017
The essence of artificial intelligence is massive, intuitive computing power: machines so smart that they can learn and become even smarter. If that sounds creepy, you are overthinking the concept. The machines are becoming quicker and more nimble, not sentient. There is no impending threat to humanity from computers that become bored and plot our doom. HAL, the computer villain from "2001: A Space Odyssey," is fictional.
EDITORIAL BOARD
"Artificial intelligence isn't the scary future. It's the amazing present.", Chicago Tribune, January 1, 2017
To be sure, many companies are puzzling over how artificial intelligence technologies might impact their workforce and operations. As AI advances, firms may face tough questions about when humans do or don't need to be involved in decision-making.
STEVE NORTON
"Artificial Intelligence Looms Larger in the Corporate World", Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2017
We can't really predict what might happen next because superintelligent A.I. may not just think faster than humans, but in ways that are completely different. It may have motivations -- feelings, even -- that we cannot fathom. It could rapidly solve the problems of aging, of human conflict, of space travel. We might see a dawning utopia. Or we might see the end of the universe.
RICK PAULAS
"How humans will lose control of artificial intelligence", The Week Magazine, April 2, 2017
Almost every time people have played with the idea of an AI and what it will look like, and what it means for it to be scary, it's been tremendously anthropomorphized. You have this thing -- it comes, it walks at you, and it sounds like you're probably going to die, or it made it very clear that there's some chance your life is in jeopardy. The thing that scares me the most about that is not the likelihood that in the next five years something like this will happen to us, but the likelihood that it will not. Over the course of the next five years, as companies continue to get better and better at building these technologies, the public at large will not understand what it is that is being done with their data, what they're giving away, and how they should be scared of the ways that AI is already playing in and with their lives and information.
MARAN NELSON
"How science fiction is training us to ignore the real threats posed by AI", The Verge, June 20, 2018
Despite how it's portrayed in books and movies, artificial intelligence is not a synthetic brain floating in a case of blue liquid somewhere. It is an algorithm -- a mathematical equation that tells a computer what functions to perform.... In the world of AI, the Holy Grail is to discover the single algorithm that will allow machines to understand the world -- the digital equivalent of the Standard Model that lets physicists explain the operations of the universe.
JEFF GOODELL
"Inside the Artificial Intelligence Revolution: A Special Report, Pt. 1", Rolling Stone, February 29, 2016
AI is already part of the operations within many companies we interact with every day, from Apple's Siri to how Uber dispatches drivers to the way Facebook arranges its Newsfeed. In fact, Facebook is making research into AI a priority, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently stating that one of his goals this year is to "code" a personal assistant to "help run his life."
JULIA BOORSTIN
"It's too late! Artificial intelligence is already everywhere", CNBC, January 26, 2016
AI is not the science of building artificial people. It's not the science of understanding human intelligence. It's not even the science of trying to build artifacts that can imitate human behavior well enough to fool someone that the machine is human, as proposed in the famous Turing test ... AI is the science of making machines do tasks that humans can do or try to do ... you could argue ... that much of computer science and engineering is included in this definition.
JAMES F. ALLEN
AI Magazine, Winter 1998
Artificial intelligence is a big buzzword for 2017. Which I just hate because I'm barely hanging onto my natural intelligence, let alone buddying up to an unseen smarty pants who can order a taxi or a pizza or a pizza to eat in a taxi if I just tell it to.
CELIA RIVENBARK
"In 2017, artificial intelligence is horning in on the realm of advice", Star News Online, December 31, 2016