We Need to Talk About A.I

If we build artificial general intelligence,

that'll be the biggest event

in the history of life on Earth.

Alien intelligence inside a computer system that

has control over the planet, the day it arrives...

And science fiction books and movies

have set it up in advance.

What's the problem?

I think you know what the problem is

just as well as I do.

What are you talking about, HAL?

This mission is too important

for me to allow you to jeopardize it.

I don't know what you're talking about, HAL.

HAL, a super-intelligent computer.

We'd call it AI today.

My character, Dave, was the astronaut

in one of the most prophetic films ever made

about the threat posed to humanity

by artificial intelligence.

HAL was science fiction.

But now, AI is all around us.

Artificial intelligence isn't the future.

AI is already here.

This week a robot ran for mayor

in a small Japanese town.

The White House says

it is creating a new task force

to focus on artificial intelligence.

Google has already announced plans

to invest more in AI research.

IBM sending an artificial intelligence robot into space.

Because of my small role in the conversation,

I understand that we're on a journey,

one that starts with narrow AI.

Machines that perform specific tasks

better than we can.

But the AI of science fiction

is artificial general intelligence,

machines that can do everything

better than us.

Narrow AI is really

like an idiot savant to the extreme,

where it can do something,

like multiply numbers really fast,

way better than any human.

But it can't do anything else whatsoever.

But AGI, artificial general intelligence,

which doesn't exist yet, is instead

intelligence that can do everything

as well as humans can.

So what happens if we do create AGI?

Science fiction authors have warned us

it could be dangerous.

And they're not the only ones.

I think people should be concerned about it.

AI is a fundamental risk

to the existence of human civilization.

And I don't think people fully appreciate that.

I do think we have to worry about it.

I don't think it's inherent

as we create super intelligence

that it will necessarily always

have the same goals in mind that we do.

I think the development

of full artificial intelligence

could spell the end of the human race.

...the end of the human race.

Tomorrow, if the headline said an artificial intelligence

has been manufactured that's as intelligent

or more intelligent than human beings,

people would argue about it, but I don't think

they'd be surprised, because science fiction

has helped us imagine all kinds

of unimaginable things.

Experts are divided about the impact

AI will have on our future,

and whether or not Hollywood is helping us plan for it.

Our dialogue has really been hijacked by Hollywood

because The Terminator makes a better blockbuster

than AI being good,

or AI being neutral,

or AI being confused.

Technology here in AI

is no different. It's a tool.

I like to think of it as a fancy pencil.

And so what pictures we draw with it,

that's up to us as a society.

We don't have to do what AI tells us.

We tell AI what to do.

I think Hollywood films

do help the conversation.

Someone needs to be thinking

ahead of what the consequences are.

But just as we can't really imagine

what the actual science of the future is going to be like,

I don't think we've begun

to really think about all of the possible futures,

which logically spring out of this technology.

Artificial intelligence has the power to change society.

A growing chorus of criticism

is highlighting the dangers

of handing control to machines.

There's gonna be a lot of change coming.

The larger long-term concern

is that humanity will be sort of shunted aside.

This is something Stanley Kubrick and others

were worried about 50 years ago, right?

It's happening.

How do we gauge the urgency of this conversation?

If people saw on radar right now

that an alien spaceship was approaching Earth

and it was 25 years away,

we would be mobilized to prepare

for that alien's arrival 25 years from now.

But that's exactly the situation that we're in

with artificial intelligence.

Could be 25 years, could be 50 years,

but an alien intelligence will arrive

and we should be prepared.

Well, gentlemen, meet Tobor.

An electronic simulacrum of a man.

Oh, gosh. Oh, gee willikers.

Even though much work remains before he is completed,

he is already a sentient being.

Back in 1956 when the term

artificial intelligence first came about,

the original goals of artificial intelligence

were human-level intelligence.

He does look almost kind, doesn't he?

Over time that's proved to be really difficult.

I think, eventually, we will have human-level

intelligence from machines.

But it may be a few hundred years. It's gonna take a while.

And so people are getting a little over-excited

about the future capabilities.

And now, Elektro, I command you to walk back.

Back.

Almost every generation,

people have got so enthusiastic.

They watch 2001,

they fall in love with HAL, they think,

"Yeah, give me six weeks. I'll get this sorted."

It doesn't happen and everyone gets upset.

So what's changed in AI research?

The difference with the AI we have today

and the reason AI suddenly took this big leap forward

is the Internet. That is their world.

Tonight the information superhighway,

and one of its main thoroughfares,

an online network called Internet.

In 1981, only 213 computers

were hooked to the Internet.

As the new year begins, an estimated

two-and-a-half million computers

will be on the network.

AIs need to eat.

Just like sheep need grass,

AIs need data.

And the great prairies of data are on the Internet.

That's what it is.

They said, "You know what?

"Let's just let them loose out there."

And suddenly, the AIs came to life.

Imagine thousands of talking robots

able to move as one unit,

taking on crime, fires,

and natural disasters.

Artificial intelligence platform Amper

has created the first album entirely composed

and produced by artificial intelligence.

Next week, Christie's will be the first auction house

to offer artwork created by artificial intelligence.

Driverless cars, said to be

in our not-so-distant future.

So even though we don't have AGI

or human-level intelligence yet,

are we ready to give autonomy

to the machines we do have?

Should self-driving cars make ethical decisions?

That is the growing debate as the technology

moves closer towards mainstream reality.

This idea of whether or not

we can embed ethics into machines,

whether or not they are automated machines

or autonomous machines,

I'm not sure we've got that figured out.

If you have a self-driving car,

it's gonna have to make ethical decisions.

A classic one people have been thinking a lot about is...

I don't know if you've heard of trolley problems.

The trolley problem.The trolley problem.

The trolley problem.The trolley problem.

In the trolley problem,

whether or not a driverless car

is going to save the driver or run over

a group of school children crossing the road.

Will the car go right and hit the old lady

or will it go left and kill the four young people?

Either kill five people standing on a bus stop