Artificial Intelligence expert, Stuart Russel from the University of California, says that the rapid development of AI technologies is spooking its creators. He said this regarding the fact that developers and researchers are getting surprised by their own success in bringing new artificial intelligence-powered innovations.
Russel firmly believes that artificial intelligence technologies will outperform human intelligence by the end of the 21st century. He mentioned that it has become critical for countries to sign international agreements to have control over the growth of artificial intelligence technologies for human benefit.
“The AI community has not yet adjusted to the fact that we are now starting to have a really big impact in the real world. That simply wasn’t the case for most of the history of the field – we were just in the lab, developing things, trying to get stuff to work, mostly failing to get stuff to work,” said Russell.
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He further added that humans need to quickly catch up with the rapid pace of technological advancement. Founder of the Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence at the University of California, Berkeley, said that scientists and researchers are yet not careful enough to use methodologies for developing artificial intelligence in real-world environments.
It is critical to take immediate measures to ensure humans remain in control when superintelligent artificial intelligence gets developed. For instance, social media algorithms have massive control over what and how users spend their time online reading.
“I think numbers range from 10 years for the most optimistic to a few hundred years. But almost all AI researchers would say it’s going to happen in this century,” said Russell when asked about AI’s depiction in movies.
Stuart Russe will also be giving 2021’s BBC Reith lectures, named ‘Living with Artificial Intelligence.’
