‘Doomsday scenarios about AI as a threat to humans are highly unlikely’

Alan Winfield, a British professor of robotics, believes that the idea of ​​artificial intelligence as a threat to humanity is far removed from reality. He finds the pessimistic view of Stephen Hawking, for example, ‘highly unhelpful’ in the debate on this.

Winfield argues that we must guard against what he calls ‘artificial stupidity’. According to him, predictions that artificial intelligence could eventually wipe out humanity are pure fiction. The professor thinks that people in this discussion are guided too much by science fiction films, and by fear and fascination, but he believes it has little to do with reality. He says there is only a very small chance that the doomsday scenario will become a reality.

According to the professor, we don’t have to be afraid of a screenplay from the Terminator movies, but there are many other points that we should be concerned about and that deserve attention. For example, he finds it worrying that jobs will disappear due to AI. He also believes that more attention should be paid to topics such as fully AI-controlled weapons, standards in self-driving cars, care robots and diagnostic AI tools in healthcare. According to him, these are problems of the here and now, partly because AI is not very intelligent according to him.

English physicist Stephen Hawking has previously expressed his concerns about artificial intelligence. He believes technology may be able to destroy us all in the future. Hawking argues that technology is developing so rapidly that there is a chance that artificial intelligence could wipe out humanity through nuclear war.

Another British professor, Mark Bishop, shares Winfield’s optimistic view. This computer science professor previously said that intelligence has its limitations, in the sense that AI does not understand the world. According to him, artificial intelligence can adjust things and recognize patterns, but AI lacks mathematical insight, for example. Also, according to the professor, computers do not deal well with human feelings and emotions, and computers cannot fully fathom or understand knowledge. In addition, Bishop states that for computers nothing is important; According to Bishop, as a result, computers do not prioritize one task at the expense of another.