Dozens of the world’s top artificial intelligence experts have signed an open letter calling for researchers to take care to avoid potential “pitfalls” of the disruptive technology .
Those who have already signed the letter include Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, the co-founders of DeepMind, Google's director of research Peter Norvig and Harvard professor of computer science David Parkes.
“There is now a broad consensus that AI research is progressing steadily, and that its impact on society is likely to increase,” says the letter, published by The Future of Life Institute.
“The potential benefits are huge, since everything that civilization has to offer is a product of human intelligence; we cannot predict what we might achieve when this intelligence is magnified by the tools AI may provide, but the eradication of disease and poverty are not unfathomable. Because of the great potential of AI, it is important to research how to reap its benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls.
Some of the research priorities set out in an accompanying paper describe the need to remain in control of any artificially intelligent machine – “systems must do what we want them to do” – while others relate to the ethics of autonomous weapons.
The paper suggests that it “may be desirable to retain some form of meaningful human control” over intelligent machines designed to kill.
It also warns that legislative efforts are needed before autonomous cars become a practical and ubiquitous technology: “If self-driving cars cut the roughly 40,000 annual US traffic fatalities in half, the car makers might get not 20,000 thank-you notes, but 20,000 lawsuits.”
Professor Stephen Hawking has previously said that the rise of artificial intelligence could see the human race become extinct.
He told the BBC: ''The primitive forms of artificial intelligence we already have have proved very useful. But I think the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.''
Technology entrepreneur Elon Musk has also described the rise of AI in the past as ''our biggest existential threat''.
This article was written by Matthew Sparkes Deputy Head of Technology from The Daily Telegraph and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.
