interview of another ai 'inventor':
"...my interview with the co-founder of DeepMind, the most advanced AI research outfit in the world...How do you envision AI’s role in supporting mental health care in the future,” I ask...
... [he responds] we’re at a moment with the development of AI where we have ways to provide support, encouragement, affirmation, coaching and advice. We’ve basically taken emotional intelligence and distilled it. And I think that is going to unlock the creativity of millions and millions of people for whom that wasn’t available.”
... the shadow side is largely what preoccupies Suleyman in his new book, written with the researcher Michael Bhaskar and ominously titled The Coming Wave. Even if you have followed debates about the dangers of artificial intelligence, or just seen Black Mirror, it’s a genuinely mind-boggling read, setting out the ineluctable forces soon to completely transform politics, society and even the fabric of life itself over the next decade or two. I tell Suleyman that it’s “sobering”.
...AI, Suleyman argues, will rapidly reduce the price of achieving any goal. Its astonishing labour-saving and problem-solving capabilities will be available cheaply and to anyone who wants to use them. He memorably calls this “the plummeting cost of power”. If the printing press allowed ordinary people to own books, and the silicon chip put a computer in every home, AI will democratise simply doing things. So, sure, that means getting a virtual assistant to set up a company for you, or using a swarm of builder bots to throw up an extension. Unfortunately, it also means engineering a run on a bank, or creating a deadly virus using a DNA synthesiser..."
theguardian.com |
