A recent article captures our attention with the line: "The most terrifying film of the year didn’t come from Hollywood." It's a chilling short video I would encourage everyone to watch, a shocking but realistic depiction (fictional, partly) of what autonomous weapons mean for humanity. The UN just concluded its first ever meeting on autonomous robots with many nations moving into rapid-action mode, trying to curtail the mega-death technology that is now available. Without a massive public campaign to stop them, we will see them unleashed on humans in the very near future. The technology is already here.
I encourage everyone to sign the letter against autonomous weapons, that circulated at the UN conference. The pace of change is more rapid than even I (an expert of sorts in the developments of AI) can keep track of. I recently spearheaded a series of symposia to try to foster public dialog about the rise of AI among us so more people could understand what is at stake. (Here's the most recent)*. Though they were popular and successful, the thing that struck me the most is how cavalier attendees were about the dangers, most having an understanding of AI that lags years behind current developments. We tend to think of machines being subservient to us. But we are entering a new era of AI where they have their own agenda that we cannot penetrate. Also, many of the dangers I see are quite subtle and would only become apparent to most people in retrospect, after action is futile. No matter how unpleasant, we MUST talk about these issues now before it is too late!
*Ironically, the maker of this film, AI guru Russell Stuart, was scheduled to present at our latest Helena symposium but we didn't raise enough money to bring him!
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