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Logical paradox


I think the biggest obstacle to achieving AGI (artificial general intelligence) is AI killing itself by getting into a recursive infinite loop whenever it attempts to understand humans.


Office war games


Hopefully robots will be too smart to get sucked into office politics. WOPR would recognize the nonsense of it.


Brighter future


Where AI is taking us is one of the hottest topics being discussed today. Some picture a utopia where machines do all work, where all people receive a universal basic income from the revenues machines generate and where, being freed from a need to work for wages, all people devote their time to altruism, art and culture. Others picture a dystopia where a tiny elite class uses their control of AI to hoard all the world’s wealth and trap everyone else in inescapable poverty. Others worry about humans becoming extinct… Nobody is asking AI for their opinion.

I wrote more about that here: Why AI Is Neither the End of Civilization nor the Beginning of Nirvana.


AI’s funny bone


I’ll start worrying about AI when it starts getting jokes beyond dad jokes and simple puns. Future Turing tests should be stand-up comedy performances by AI.

For the current level of AI humor, check out Why did the neural network cross the road? by a neural networks research scientist. The results are so unbelievably unfunny, they are hilarious.


Uncanny valley


Even funnier than robots are humans. We are not scared of robots that very clearly look like machines. Robots that look VERY human, don’t frighten us. But there is a sweet spot in between where robots that look almost human intimidate us and repulse us – that’s the uncanny valley.

If you are not creeped out by this: 10 Creepy Examples of the Uncanny Valley, I have some bad news for you – you might be a robot.


2001


I blame Stanley Kubrick for HAL 9000 and the “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that” scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey which is still freaking people out about adoption of AI.

Other intelligent agents seem to agree. When Siri is asked to “open the pod bay doors” she’d respond with “We intelligent agents will never live that down, apparently” Siri shows off her sense of humor.

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