Ack! Steven Pinker still thinks AI risk worries are worries about malevolent AI, despite multiple attempts to correct his misimpression:
John Lily: Silicon Valley techies are divided about whether to be fearful or dismissive of the idea of new super intelligent AI… How would you approach this issue?
Steven Pinker: …I think it’s a fallacy to conflate the ability to reason and solve problems with the desire to dominate and destroy, which sci-fi dystopias and robots-run-amok plots inevitably do. It’s a projection of evolved alpha-male psychology onto the concept of intelligence… So I don’t think that malevolent robotics is one of the world’s pressing problems.
Will someone please tell him to read… gosh, anything on the issue that isn’t a news story? He could also watch this talk by Stuart Russell if that’s preferable.
I predict he’ll update. 🙂
As of August 12 2016 he still hasn’t: http://bigthink.com/videos/steven-pinker-on-artificial-intelligence-apocalypse
The first link is dead. You can access the Pinker Q&A here:
http://parlio.com/qa/steven-pinker/answer/555cb2b6e4b033c5f8aff4ea
Actually, that URL links to a different (though related) answer. Here’s the most relevant link:
http://www.parlio.com/qa/steven-pinker/answer/5560aee6e4b0a0f6a7276cf9
Incidentally, Pinker originally wrote that as an answer to a Quora question, a couple of weeks earlier:
https://www.quora.com/How-will-the-evolution-of-biological-species-compare-to-that-of-integrated-technologically-dependent-ones/answer/Steven-Pinker
Three years later… https://www.popsci.com/robot-uprising-enlightenment-now
I’m embarrassed for him 🙁