Jaan Tallinn, co-founder of the Skype internet calling service, said that the development of artificial intelligence (AI) threatens humanity. According to him, people are faced with three key threats, but AI is the most to be feared, the expert said.
Tallinn explained that at the moment, no one can predict how AI will develop in the coming decades. In addition, it is worrying that scientists are creating artificial intelligence that can create new AI without human intervention.
In addition, as the co-founder of the popular video calling service noted, the development of synthetic biology also raises concerns. According to him, this direction in science makes it possible to create artificial DNA sequences and biological systems that may not exist in nature.
Tallinn also drew attention to the fact that it is afraid of “unknown unknowns”. So he called things that now people cannot even imagine right now.
As AI systems get more powerful, unintended behavior may become less charming and more dangerous. Experts have argued that powerful AI systems, whatever goals we give them, are likely to have certain predictable behavior patterns. They’ll try to accumulate more resources, which will help them achieve any goal.
They’ll try to discourage us from shutting them off, since that’d make it impossible to achieve their goals. And they’ll try to keep their goals stable, which means it will be hard to edit or “tweak” them once they’re running.
Even systems that don’t exhibit unintended behavior now are likely to do so when they have more resources available.