hokey intelligence has been predominate large in the public conciousness recently , thanks to the likes ofElon Musk and Stephen Hawking telling ushow we ’re going to die out at the hands of robots ( the upcoming Terminator reboot probably does n’t help , either ) . But amidst the techpocalypse talk , there ’s been limited treatment of what constitutes A.I , and how it might look completely different to Skynet .
As Benjamin H. Brattonexplains in theNew York Times , our idea of hokey intelligence has been engineered from the beginning to be anthropomorphous : a genuinely ‘ intelligent ’ computer is one that reflect humanity back at us . The Turing test , the flawed but oft - quoted determination of unreal intelligence , really just requires a data processor to place as a human for a few bit — something that Bratton find bizarre :
That we would wish well to set the very existence of A.I. in telling to its power to mimic how man think that humans think will be looked back upon as a weird sort of speciesism . The legacy of that conceit helped to steer some older A.I. enquiry down disappointingly fruitless paths , hoping to recreate human minds from uncommitted theatrical role . It just does n’t act upon that room .
He go on to manoeuver out that planes do n’t pilot like birds , so why should calculator be hamstrung by human impressionism ?
When it come to the issue of the peril of A.I , Bratton is occupy , but not about a robot coup d’etat . Rather , “ what we really venerate , even more than a Big Machine that wants to kill us , is one that sees us as irrelevant . ”
In a technology landscape painting a small overrun withfaux - humanoid digital assistantsand a decade - honest-to-goodness public perception of A.I , Bratton ’s essay is an insightful take on an incredibly important matter . And , it might make you barricade and think next time you swear at Siri . [ New York Times ]
Image : Shutterstock / Olga Nikonova
Daily Newsletter
Get the best technical school , science , and refinement newsworthiness in your inbox daily .
word from the time to come , delivered to your present .
