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2/23/2017 ArtificialIntelligence:TheRisksCouldOutweightheRewards|IQ2USDebates

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0:00 / 1:39:19

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:
THE RISKS COULD OUTWEIGH
THE REWARDS Clips Podcasts Live Transcript

As technology rapidly progresses, some proponents of arti cial intelligence believe that it will

help solve complex social challenges and offer immortality via virtual humans. But AIs critics are
sounding the alarm, going so far as to call its development an existential threat to mankind. Is
this the stuff of science ction?Could the Terminator become reality, or will these fears
prevent the next technological revolution?

The Debaters

For the motion Against the motion

Jaron Lanier
Computer Scientist &
Author, Who Owns the
Future?
Jaron Lanier is a computer scientist,
author, and composer, best known
for his work in virtual reality
research, a term he coined and
popularized... Read More
Andrew Keen
Internet Entrepreneur
& Author, The Internet
Is Not the Answer
Andrew Keen is an Internet
entrepreneur and the author of three
books: The Internet Is Not the
Answer (2015), Digital Vertigo: How
Today s Social... Read More
James Hughes Martine
Executive Director, Rothblatt
Institute for Ethics and Transhumanist,
Emerging Technologies Entrepreneur &
Author, Virtually
Human
James Hughes, PhD, is the executive
Martine Rothblatt is the chairman
director of the Institute for Ethics
and CEO of United Therapeutics, a
and Emerging Technologies. A
biotechnology company, and the
bioethicist and sociologist, he serves
author of Virtually Human: The
as the... Read More
Promise and Peril... Read More

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Where Do You Stand?

Cast Your
For The Motion Against The Motion Pre-Debate Vote

AI threatens to fundamentally alter the

human way of life and should not be
Fear of the unknown should not prevent
the next wave of the technological and
This vote is intended to
capture your opinion on
developed without adequate planning and human progress. the topic before hearing
foresight. any of the arguments.
AI is a potentially life-saving tool that can Please vote based upon
To say that algorithms can mimic
consciousness is to devalue what it means
help cure disease and eradicate human-
to-human warfare.
what you currently know
and believe to be true.
to be human.
Ifplace,
precautions and regulations are put in
Cheap AI labor may replace human labor
and deepen the economic inequality
"human friendly" AI can be
developed to serve humans rather than
Cast Your Vote
between business owners and human threaten them.
laborers. Learn About Voting
AI technology can preserve the minds of
Acould
self-aware and self-evolving machine
challenge humans for critical
our loved ones as well as society's
greatest intellectuals and leaders.
resources.

Results

LIVE AUDIENCE ONLINE AUDIENCE

WINNER
For The Motion: +30% Change
Against The Motion: -12% Change
Undecided: -18% Change

RESULTS BREAKDOWN

PRE-DEBATE POST-DEBATE
Against The For The
Motion Motion
41% 59%

Undecided
30%

Against The
Motion
http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/artificialintelligenceriskscouldoutweighrewards 29% 3/8
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Debate Details Cast Your Vote Results The Research Join The Discussion 29%Posts
Related
For The
Motion
29%
Undecided
12%

The Research

The Myth of AI Learning Technologies 2012 - The First Church of Robotics

Jaron Lanier / February 19, 2016
The biggest threat of AI is probably the
one that's due to AI not actually existing,
to the idea being a fraud, or at least such a
poorly constructed idea that it's phony. In
other words, if AI was a real thing, then it
probably would be less of a threat to us
than it is as a fake thing.
Read More
Jaron Lanier - The rise of post-
human machine intelligence?
Jaron Lanier / April 30, 2012
In this video, Lanier discusses the impact
of today's digital technologies and how
they are not all they appear to be.
Read More
Jaron Lanier / August 9, 2010
By allowing arti cial intelligence to
reshape our concept of personhood, we
are leaving ourselves open to the ipside:
we think of people more and more as
computers, just as we think of computers
as people.
Read More

More Related Articles: For Against Background Current Technology

The Discussion

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by Matt Chalawsky
IQ2

14 28December20161:39pm

The fear of conscious AI is like fearing time travel. We have no idea if it's even
possible, let alone what it would look like once implemented. Most of the "AI"
work going on today involves machine learning algorithms. These solve very
speci c problems, and though they may look like human intelligence, they are
just algorithms.

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Legacy IQ2US
6June201612:44am

On 2016-06-06 00:44:44, Simon Morgan wrote:

'Machines' can only do what they are programmed to do. This will always be the
case, despite James Cameron and his Terminators.

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by Frank 71
IQ2

0 28April20163:07am

AI will be the next revolution in technology and thus cannot be lumped together
with current technologies because of its self-aware nature. As dangerous as
current technologies can be, they still need to be operated by humans unless
programed to do otherwise. But with AI, it can make decisions for itself, and thus
can very well see humans as undesirable elements to be removed due to its logic
being unhindered by morality and ethics. From the unlimitless nature of human
greed to humans' arrogant sense of self-worth in light of AIs that will very likely
be superior to us in all the ways that matter, we are de nitely not ready for an AI
future at this time.

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Legacy IQ2US
10April20167:41pm

On 2016-04-10 19:41:28, Ed Creskoff wrote:

Where was Bostrom, or anyone that could represent that view? Lanier seems to
argue that because intelligence and consciousness are inadequately de ned
engineers need not consider AI ethics. For Lanier, AI engineers have no special
ethical considerations, only functional ones. Very confusing speaker choice and
team assignments.

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IQ2
by markrkrebs 12
2 29March20162:18pm

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Debate Details JustCast YouraVote

enjoyed Results
compelling hour The Research
of podcast "radio" Join The
listening to iq2us.org, Discussion
debating Related Posts
the proposition, "Don't trust the promise of AI." The debaters' expertise


overcame a seemingly boring topic. One beautiful argument described AI as
already happening, as when Google tells me it's time to leave for the airport. We
are not impressed when computers optimize our route, play chess, y airplanes,
compute square roots or drive cars because we can, with diligent effort codify
(literally) those things and once laid bare to inspection the skill ceases to
impress. Somehow we remain impressed with ourselves, though we seem
nothing more than generalists, an amalgam of those features bolted to a multi-
purpose actuator with opposable thumbs. (And hey, how many of those things
can YOU do? I'm saying, it's already time to be impressed.) Failing to recognize
the already manifes emergence of AI is tantamount to accepting the mystery of
consciousness. That we do not yet credit the achievement is proof that the eld
of AI has "lost it's moorings to fantasy" waiting for Hal to seal the airlock before
we'll grant the medal of consciousness. And we want it to just happen, to Emerge
with a capital E. Harrumph. I think it more likely that we'll accept Siri as a
girlfriend by creeping inches, unconsciously, until it's a fait accompli, without
ever having been properly debated. To decide whether and how to go forward,
maybe we should look back... "Our problems are of our own making" was another
of the arguments made. It's true; we don't fear famine, locusts, lions. Poverty,
cruelty, and injustice, other things humans do though - THOSE are things to
worry about. To decide how to go forward, we should look back: with that
retrospective, we see everyone losing their jobs to technology, and this fear
carried the day. Disappointingly, the resolution carried, and I think that's why,
and I don't think "losing their jobs" is the right way to look at it. Taking the long
view, it is certainly the case that computers, science, and machines have, taken
the hard jobs of hauling and farming and digging and long division that we would
prefer not to do. The argument came down to fear of technological
unemployment, and the proper rebuttal (which *was* made) is that ownership of
the largess of the industrial age is a social problem, not a technological one, and
hence not a reason to un-invent the steam hammer. ...or to resolve not to invent

the next one.

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Legacy IQ2US
24March201612:08pm

On 2016-03-24 12:08:51, Sander Gusinow wrote:

In a roundabout way, I think this debate leads into another, perhaps more
relevant debate: "Scandinavian socialism is the way of the future." I would totally
love to see this one. Make it happen, Donvan!

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Legacy IQ2US
13March20166:08pm

On 2016-03-13 18:08:35, Easton Smith wrote:

I've been excited about this debate for months, but I found both sides massively
disappointing. For a fan of the eld and the question, it was borderline
intolerable. It didn't live up to intelligence squared usual standards. Bring in Nick
Bostrom next time.

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Legacy IQ2US
13March20163:49am

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Debate Details OnCast Your Vote

2016-03-13 ResultsOlejar wrote:
03:49:20, Damir The Research Join The Discussion Related Posts
The AI is correlational, science is causal. Mixing up the two means that there

premise. Therefore this debate is a debate about those
exists a fallacious
premises. Just like cartoons, this debate is useless, but very very entertaining.

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Legacy IQ2US
12March20166:26pm

On 2016-03-12 18:26:57, Michael Nevins wrote:

The real problem with AI is the lack of a compact human like cognitive-robotic
model and that requires perceiving actual biological structure (static) and its
associated functional process (dynamic). Google obviously gured out (or
guessed) the rst requirement of perceiving our brains biological structure by
using 2 neural nets. Now let's see how well they understand the functional
dynamics of dual modeling on a central object model. Let's see AlphaGo a go go
go

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Legacy IQ2US
12March20167:18am

On 2016-03-12 07:18:54, Jonathan wrote:

This was on Linkedin Post The reports is IMO excellent:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ai-future-civilization-peter-alexander-denega?
trk=pulse_spock-articles

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