Technology bosses ‘afraid to voice concerns over AI’ because it could hurt firms’ profits
TOP technology bosses privately believe that advances in artificial intelligence may ultimately harm humanity, but are prevented from saying so publicly because of the potential impact on corporate profits, according to an MIT professor who is considered one of the world’s foremost experts.
Max Tegmark, who has written more than 200 academic papers and a bestselling book on AI, says: “Is anyone ever going to talk about the risks artificial intelligence might pose? Of course not because their corporate lawyers are going to stop them.”
The academic from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston is viewed as a leading thinker in the world of AI and robotics.
His opinions have been quoted by some of the most influential people in technology, including Hermann Hauser, founder of Britain’s largest tech company Arm, and Tesla billionaire Elon Musk.
Prof Tegmark claims that many people in the industry, from lowly engineers to chief executives, are seriously concerned about how advances in AI could harm humanity.
He fears robots will not only take over our jobs but eventually turn against us, and claims little is being done to address the risk.
His book, Life 3.0, details his research suggesting that society has entered what might be the final stage of
‘It will be poetically tragic if our only goal is to make ourselves obsolete. Surely we should have more ambition’
an evolutionary process brought about by advances in computer science.
He describes the story of humanity in three stages: so-called Life 1.0 when humans were defined by their biology. The second stage, Life 2.0, was when humans took control of their software: culture, language, beliefs. The final frontier, Life 3.0, allows humans to redesign their hardware and this stage is imminent, the book suggests. But it warns that it could be the era in which we make humanity obsolete. “I was just recently having dinner with a very senior person in a leading AI firm that said … you know this is exactly what I think too but I can’t say it publicly.
“You understand the dynamic, when you represent a large company you have to be very careful what you say whereas when you are an academic like myself you have this wonderful freedom to just say it,” Prof Tegmark said.
Most researchers are betting on artificial general intelligence (AGI) appearing within “decades”, Prof Tegmark says. This will pave the way for what he dubs “welfare 3.0”: a time when governments will need to step in to make sure the economic wealth brought about by automation is equally spread, he adds.
Prof Tegmark thinks Britain is a prime candidate to become a test bed for this new societal model thanks to its post-war history.
He said: “We are making machines that can outperform our brains and then there is nowhere left for us to go. I think it will be poetically tragic if our only goal is to make ourselves obsolete. Surely we should have a more ambitious goal than that.”