Tag: Killer robots

New book: "Surviving AI". Review copies available

I've just finished writing a non-fiction book on artificial intelligence, called Surviving AI. It starts with a brief history of the science and a description of its current state.  It goes on to look at the benefits and risks that AI presents in the short and medium term, with a short story highlighting the improvements to everyday life that are in the pipeline, and discussions of technological unemployment and killer robots. Then it gets into artificial general intelligence - machines with human-level cognition: whether we can create one, and if so when; whether we will like it if we do, and what we should do about...

On killer robots

The Guardian's editorial of 14th April 2014 (Weapons systems are becoming autonomous entities. Human beings must take responsibility) argued that killer robots should always remain under human control, because robots can never be morally responsible. They kindly published my reply, which said that this may not be true if and when we create machines whose cognitive abilities match or exceed those of humans in every respect. Surveys indicate that around 50% of AI researchers think that could happen before 2050. But long before then we will face other dilemmas. If wars can be fought by robots, would that not be...