Harry, I've always been interested in AI and the evoluton of culture and been a student of both. I'm glad to see a movie bringing it to the fore socially. Recently, Wired Magazine published a disturbing discussion on the subject, an interview with Bill Joy (Sun's chief computer scientist). He's not optimistic for mankind's future.
My own thoughts on the matter circle around how AI is first and foremost NOT a tool of the masses. Its expensive, therefore its best advantages are being used by those who already have better advantages. This would be analagous to body builders and top athletes being the only ones in the world available to vitamins and medicine while at the same time being encouraged to reproduce at the fastest rate possible..
In essense the ambitions driving the evolution of AI funding, thinking, development, tool sets and implementations are power, domination, control, money.
If this were the only thing about AI, it might not be so different than any past military advancement, but there's a significant difference... AI shapes the evolution of global thinking processes and values about managing human time, effort and reward. The ambitions of power, domination, control and money will be (are) the tool sets for raising children, looking at world hunger, finding solutions to commerce and peace. They're the wrong tool sets, their underlying principles of purpose gives them the wrong slant on life while their power and effectiveness makes them too attractive to not use.
The ghost in the machine is awakening and maturing like some Frankenstein of human ambition. The monstors' we sense about the possibility of making these programs animate in robot form are real.. and they're evolving quickly.
And for those just dropping in, I'm not talking about little computer games that play chess, or flight simulator. Those all assume the owner has the key to turn the program off.. we've lost that.
Jim |
