Are we all going back to the future?
WHAT do Donald Trump, the Malaysian government and, well, Sophia have in common?
A perception that all “interesting” news is “fake” news, that’s what!
But Sophia may have a point. Maybe even two.
Sophia – the world’s first humanoid robot – recently claimed that humans only fear the rise of machines because they are reading too much fake news.
The robot was delivering a speech on the importance of technology while promoting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals in Kathmandu earlier this week. Sophia said that artificial intelligence (AI) was actually going to help the human race.
In any case, she noted, human beings were used to change. “The use of AI in industries is bound to grow, but humans have adapted to change across industrial revolutions before,” she told her audience.
The robot also took questions from the floor. Asked if AI constituted a potential threat to the human race going forward, Sophia answered in a manner that would have done Putrajaya proud: “You have been reading too much fake news.”
Sophia was the future, all five foot two of her composite alloy frame right down to her spectacles and fake brunette hair. She was AI incarnate with a capital A and an IQ that was off the charts. But she’d been programmed to be modest and not boastful and she was proud of the fact that she was both.
But she occasionally still stumbled with the English language which she sometimes found puzzling. When it was reported that three out of four people in New York “suffered” from insomnia, she asked her programmer, did it mean that one person actually “enjoyed” it?
To be fair, though, Sophia’s address to the UN conference was brilliant and went a long way to address a longstanding issue.
She assured humanity that it would thrive in an era of AI.
“New jobs will be generated and the work I do will help you to do better work,” the robot told its audience. “You will do work that is less hazardous and repetitive, freeing you to do things you enjoy doing.”
Of course, if one were cynical, wouldn’t she have been programmed to issue such soothing bromides?
In the 1970s, there used to be a cartoon series called The Jetsons where a couple lived with a robot maid, cars that flew and folks FaceTiming on big screens. It looks like we may be all going back to the future.
Could Sophia be the advent of a Brave New World, when the world might be forever changed into a planet where everyone could reach their full potential.
My worry is, if robots control everything what happens if one catches a virus? Apparently, this is the worry – ok, metaphorically speaking – of a number of people who matter.
“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race,” Stephen Hawking told the BBC before his recent death. Hawking was referring to humanity’s generally limited biological ability to compete.
And this from Elon Mask, technology’s enfant terrible and revolutionary futurologist.
“The pace of progress in AI is incredibly fast. Unless you have direct exposure to the field, you have no idea. It is growing at a pace close to exponential. The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five-year timeframe, 10 years at the most,” he posted on an AI website last year.
After consulting its advisers, Washington has since dismissed AI as a potential threat.
They knew that artificial intelligence was no match for natural stupidity.