Following Stephen Hawking: 'Transcendence looks at the implications of artificial intelligence - but are we taking AI seriously enough?', on LinkedIn, Response to Hawking.
These scientists are doing well on their own fields, and write very popular books on the future - but forget one thing. Fear is so popular. People were afraid of having too many horses and that leads to crisis - but they invented other ways of transportation. People were afraid of machines, killing robots - now we have huge machinery, and have accidents of course, but no machine riots.
Only one thing seems to be constant: the real future NEVER makes a bestseller or popular idea in the present. It is made by maniacs who think REALLY different, not only extend the things we currently know in time - so, totally naturally, are understood or taken seriously by very few people. Mr Kurzweil and other "futurists", added Mr Hawking now, make good living on selling their ideas to current masses, but I would suggest not wasting time on their words for the masses if you really want to think :-)
Second: as far as I see (current films, books), our race has absolutely no idea about how to solve the crisis we have made, and make a livable future for the next, say, 50 years. This AI fear is just one in the row: a child, after making huge trouble in his room, waits for daddy for help and punishment. But hey! What if daddy does not come, and it's only us who can fix the problems before it gets too late? What if whining does not help, only makes the time for real action shorter, or perhaps too late? And if it's already too late - how do you want to fail: sitting and crying in the corner, or while working on the solution? What do you choose?
Personal note: I AM a sw architect, I have literally spent the last 20 years in making always smarter systems, looking for the holy grail of computing, and its effect on us (not thinking about the edges of a black hole). I live in a kind of fusion with computers, and sorry, I laugh at these ideas, just as I laugh at the IT middle age that "big names" create, and the smart guys inventing the new languages and tools (not knowing, therefore repeating the same stuff again and again). I am one of those who believe they are WORKING on, not only talking about or fearing of the future. I have very little chance to be one of those who turn to be right, but that's much more than being popular for telling jokes about it.
