There are thought experiments that have established an almost mythical position among a particular group of engineers. If you give them a seemingly harmless goal, such as building artificial intelligence and creating as many paper clips as possible, you might eventually turn everything into raw materials for all paper clips.
Such absurd analogy has been taken seriously by some of Silicon Valley's loudest voices, many of which now warn that AI is an existential risk that is more dangerous than nuclear weapons. These stories shape how billionaires, including Elon Musk, think about AI, and fueled an increasing number of people who believe that what has happened to humanity is the best or worst.
So, do you actually need to worry about AI?
in Good robotA special four-part podcast series to be released on March 12th Can't explain and The perfection for the futurehost Julia Longoria To answer that question, we go deeper into the strange, high-stakes world of AI. But this is more than just a technological story. It's about the people who shape it, the competing ideologies that drive them, and the big consequences of making this right (or getting it wrong).
For a long time, AI has been something that most people didn't need to think about, but that's no longer the case. The decisions currently being made are already changing the world about who controls AI, how they are trained, what to do, or what to do.
People trying to build these systems don't even agree on what should happen next, or what it is creating. While Sam Altman, CEO of Openai, talks about creating “the magical intelligence of the sky,” or something like God, some call it artificial general information (AGI).
But whether AI is a true existential risk or another exaggerated technology trend, one thing is certain. The stakes are rising, and the battle for what intelligence we are building is just beginning. Good robot It takes technology as well as the ideology, fear and ambition that shapes it into this battle. From billionaires and researchers to ethicists and skeptics, this is the tale of the messy, uncertain future of AI, and the people trying to pilot it.
