Stephen Hawking: Should we fear artificial intelligence? - International Innovation

Q: Whenever I teach artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning or intelligent robotics, my class and I end up having what I call'The Terminator Conversation'. My point in this conversation is that the dangers from AI are overblown by media and non-understanding news, and the real danger is the same danger in any complex, less-than-fully-understood code: edge case unpredictability. In my opinion, this is different from'dangerous AI' as most people perceive it, in that the software has no motives, no sentience and no evil morality, and is merely (ruthlessly) trying to optimise a function that we ourselves wrote and designed. Your viewpoints (and Elon Musk's) are often presented by the media as a belief in'evil AI,' though of course that's not what your signed letter says. Students that are aware of these reports challenge my view, and we always end up having a pretty enjoyable conversation. How would you represent your own beliefs to my class?