Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak has revealed that he's increasingly worried about the threat that Artificial Intelligence (AI) poses to humanity.
"Computers are going to take over from humans," the 64-year-old engineer told the Australian Financial Review. "No question."
Increasing numbers of prominent figures in the tech world have begun to speak up about the potential risks of AI. While truly intelligent machines (if actually theoretically possible) could be a boon to industry, they could also prove dangerous if they decided to turn on their creators.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that AI poses the"biggest existential threat" to humanity, and speaks frequently about the issue. And Microsoft founder Bill Gates says that within a few decades, AI will be "strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don't understand why some people are not concerned."Respected physicist Stephen Hawking has also said that AI could"spell the end of the human race."
Wozniak told the Australian Financial Review that"like people including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have predicted, I agree that the future is scary and very bad for people. If we build these devices to take care of everything for us, eventually they'll think faster than us and they'll get rid of the slow humans to run companies more efficiently."
He adds: "Will we be the gods? Will we be the family pets? Or will we be ants that get stepped on? I don't know about that … But when I got that thinking in my head about if I'm going to be treated in the future as a pet to these smart machines … well I'm going to treat my own pet dog really nice."
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