I confess that until I read the article, I thought that "the rise of Al" was "the rise of capital-A lowercase-L" i.e, the rise of Al Gore... I just thought, you know, the way he burns energy and has a huge carbon footprint that Al Gore was considered a threat to humanity....

The writers are just another bunch of Luddites who are scared to death about something they really don't understand. First, they over simplify the problem when it comes to the computers wanting to kill us to expand access to resources. To put is simply, they would actually need us, or they would not last very long till the power grid fails around them. The raw materials are still mostly mined by humans. The equipment is still assembled by humans. Repair is pretty much all humans. So, in reality they would require a more symbiotic relationship. In the meantime lets explore how a self aware machine will pop into existence. The Luddites usually assume that for some reason it will happen at a university or the military somewhere. What they fail to understand is that all of the premium AI talent these days is heading to wall street to do work on the high frequency trading black boxes. Those in turn are also hidden behind a very tall very thick legal wall of non-disclosures and non-compete agreements. They don't even go for patents as that would require showing their hands. So, I would suggest that the day that a self aware machine is born it will be by accident in the data center of a trading company. This has two side effects. 1. The machine will not have access to very much stuff, as the black box networks are not even directly on the internet. 2. The most real damage it could cause would be to cause a trading outage. Since thanks to the high frequency traders the markets have built in protections to reduce the odds of another flash crash.

I am not an expert on this but this line in the paper is chilling “In conclusion, it appears that humanity’s great challenge for this century is to extend cooperative human values and institutions to autonomous technology for the greater good”

“Greater Good?” The phrase used by all despots for their actions.


A lot of people have studied this issue. One of the first was Issac Asimov and he created the three rules for robots.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Another person who took this recently was Ray Kurzweil in his book Singularity. He presents an optimistic outlook, but delves into some very interesting and difficult questions including what it means to be you. Am I still db if I lose an arm? What if my arm is replaced with a bionic arm? What if a computer augments my brain?

Well you have to admit, a bunch of hyper-rational robots against a bunch of irrational humans who are all willing to sacrifice themselves to the 'greater good'... I'll put my money on the robots.

Reminds me of the SNL where they are hocking robot insurance to old people ... so when the metal one come for you, you'll be prepared.

NOOOO SKYNET! Rise of the machines... booo