- An Australian expert says Artificial Intelligence (AI) is less than 50 years away from matching humans.
- Professor Toby Walsh from UNSW says he’s already getting nervous about where AI is going.
- The issue is creating machines aligned with human values, something now missing in AI.
Artificial Intelligence will learn unique human traits such as adaptability, creativity and emotional intelligence by 2062, says an Australian expert.
Toby Walsh, Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at UNSW Sydney, believes that there has already been a fundamental shift in the world as we know it.
"Even without machines that are very smart, I'm starting to get a little bit nervous about where it's going and the important choices we should be making," Walsh told the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney.
"A lot of the debate has focused on how personal information was stolen from people, and we should be rightly outraged by that.
"But there is another side to the story that I'm surprised hasn't gotten as much attention from the media, which is that the information was used very actively to manipulate how people were going to vote."
Walsh, the author of "2062: The World that AI Made", says breaches of data privacy will occur more often and are becoming increasingly normalised.
"Many of us have smartwatches that are monitoring our vital signs; our blood pressure, our heartbeat, and if you look at the terms of service, you don't own that data," Walsh says.
The ethics of machine accountability will be the second fundamental shift.
"Fully autonomous machines will radically change the nature of warfare," Walsh says.
He believes the issue is creating machines aligned with human values, which is currently a problem on other platforms driven by Artificial Intelligence.
"Facebook is an example of the alignment problem, it is optimised for your attention, not for creating political debate or for making society a better place," Walsh says.
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