Category: Recommendations

Artificial Intelligence and Weaponised Nostalgia

Artificial Intelligence and Weaponised Nostalgia

The first political party to be called populist was the People’s Party, a powerful but short-lived force in late 19th-century America. It was a left-wing movement which opposed the oligarchies running the railroads, and promoted the interests of small businesses and farms. Populists can be right-wing or left-wing. In Europe they tend to be right-wing and in Latin America they tend to be left-wing. Populist politicians pose as champions for the “ordinary people” against the establishment. They claim that a metropolitan elite has stolen the birthright of the virtuous, “real” people, and they promise to restore it. At the heart...
Government regulation of AI is like pressing a big red danger button

Government regulation of AI is like pressing a big red danger button

Imagine that you and I are in my laboratory, and I show you a Big Red Button. I tell you that if I press this button, then you and all your family and friends - in fact the whole human race - will live very long lives of great prosperity, and in great health. Furthermore, the environment will improve, and inequality will reduce both in your country and around the world. Of course, I add, there is a catch. If I press this button, there is also a chance that the whole human race will go extinct. I cannot tell...
Fully Automated Luxury Capitalism

Fully Automated Luxury Capitalism

The substitutive effect In the future, machines will replace humans in jobs. This is not controversial: it’s what machines have done since well before the start of the industrial revolution. Petrol pump attendants were replaced by automated pumps, secretaries were replaced by Microsoft Office. This is what economists call the substitutive effect of automation: humans are substituted in jobs by machines. The complementary effect From time to time, fears have been expressed that humans would run out of jobs entirely. I first wrote about this concern back in 1980, and like many other people at the time, I under-estimated the...
“Calum’s Rule”

“Calum’s Rule”

Forecasts should specify the timeframe Disagreements which suggest profound differences of philosophy sometimes turn out to be merely a matter of timing: the parties don’t actually disagree about whether a thing will happen or not, they just disagree over how long it will take. For instance, timing is at the root of apparently fundamental differences of opinion about the technological singularity. Elon Musk is renowned for his warnings about superintelligence: “With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. You know all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water and he’s like, yeah, he’s sure...
Don’t shoot the Messenger

Don’t shoot the Messenger

"It was Facebook wot dunnit.” Select the unpleasantness of your choice, and Facebook is almost certainly being blamed for it by someone, and probably a lot of someones. Also in the dock are YouTube and Twitter, with Instagram and Snapchat lurking about, keeping their heads down and hoping that nobody notices them. The charge sheet is long. Facebook and the other social media have shortened our attention spans, leaving us easy prey to slick salesmen with plausible one-liners. They have corralled us all into echo chambers, so that we only ever hear voices telling us what we already think. We...
Time for Europe to step up

Time for Europe to step up

It is widely known that investment in artificial intelligence (AI) is concentrated in two Pacific Rim countries, China and the USA. But the strength of this duopoly is not generally appreciated, so here are two recent data points which throw it into sharp relief. First, we have learned that Amazon’s R&D spend has reached 50% of the total spent by the UK on R&D. This means all the spend on any kind of R&D by the UK government and all the UK’s companies and universities. This astonishing fact becomes even more significant when you consider that a great deal of...
Superintelligence: a balanced approach

Superintelligence: a balanced approach

A couple of recent events made me think it would be good to post a brief but (hopefully) balanced summary of the discussion about superintelligence. Can we create superintelligence, and if so, when? Our brains are existence proof that ordinary matter organised the right way can generate general intelligence – an intelligence which can apply itself to any domain. They were created by evolution, which is slow, messy and inefficient. It is also un-directed, although non-random. We are now employing the powerful, fast and purposeful method of science to organise different types of ordinary matter to achieve the same result....
Don’t panic!

Don’t panic!

Franklin D Roosevelt was inaugurated as US President in March 1933, in the depth of the Great Depression. His famous comment that “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” was reassuring to his troubled countrymen, and has resonated down the years. If and when it turns out that machines will make it impossible for many people to earn a living, fear will not be our only problem. But it may well turn out to be our first very serious problem. Fully autonomous, self-driving vehicles will start to be sold during the coming decade – perhaps within five...
Our wonderful future needs you!

Our wonderful future needs you!

The media today is full of stories about artificial intelligence, and there is universal agreement that it is a very big deal. But ironically, most people are not paying close attention. This is probably because the stories are confused and confusing. Some say that robots will take all our jobs and then turn into murderous Terminators. Others say that is all hype, and there is much less going on than meets the eye. And so most people shudder slightly, shrug their shoulders and get on with the business of living. And who can blame them? When you pull back from...