<story><title>The Myth of AI – Jaron Lanier</title><url>http://edge.org/conversation/jaron_lanier-the-myth-of-ai</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>IanDrake</author><text>&amp;gt;What makes you think the otherwise very intelligent people are wrong?&lt;p&gt;Mostly history.  Specifically the history of such predictions made by smart people of their own time that never came to pass.&lt;p&gt;I assure you, this has all been predicted before.  AI taking over the earth is always a decade away.&lt;p&gt;There are people who wear tin-foil hats and there are those that sell tin-foil hats.&lt;p&gt;The former think they&amp;#x27;re saving the world, while the latter are just making money off of the former.  It&amp;#x27;s the same business model as religion and global warming.</text></item><item><author>tim333</author><text>3) Because it&amp;#x27;s a real possibility. What makes you think the otherwise very intelligent people are wrong? Maybe we should look to the stupid and to philosophers who don&amp;#x27;t understand computers for answers?</text></item><item><author>IanDrake</author><text>The real question for me is:&lt;p&gt;What is motivating otherwise very intelligent people to promote the idea that AI will take all our jobs and&amp;#x2F;or enslave us?&lt;p&gt;Possible answers:&lt;p&gt;1) To prop up their investments in AI to get higher valuation.&lt;p&gt;2) To reach a political goal, such as basic income, which is often justified as necessary in a world where computers and robots take over the work force.&lt;p&gt;3) ?</text></item><item><author>tsunamifury</author><text>I think Jaron knows what many engineers who have worked on AI know: That the external promise of AI is far more inflated than the capability of the actual technology.  It&amp;#x27;s simply that when the current technology gets just complicated enough for the above-average person to no longer understand, everyone starts assigning magical properties and expectations to it.  This results in short term over-valuations, which inevitably lead to disappointment [1].&lt;p&gt;Jaron has observed this several times and rightly seems to be tired of repeating the same naive cycle.&lt;p&gt;As I&amp;#x27;m just now entering my second cycle and watching tech repeat itself again -- I&amp;#x27;m beginning to understand his weariness.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;hbr.org&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;the-overvaluation-trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;hbr.org&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;the-overvaluation-trap&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TeMPOraL</author><text>There are predictions and there are predictions. There will always be those predicting that strong AI is a decade away, right until the point when the last group is actually right about it.&lt;p&gt;But there&amp;#x27;s a different kind of &amp;quot;prediction&amp;quot;, which I think is the type those smart people subscribe to - that we are on the path to an AI, that there&amp;#x27;s nothing that would make it impossible to achieve as the technology progresses (a reminder: we have a working example that intelligence can be built - our brains). Of course there are a lot of obstacles on the way. Personally, the most probable is that our civilization ends before we reach the necessary level - because of war, or all the economic and political shenanigans we see every day.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Myth of AI – Jaron Lanier</title><url>http://edge.org/conversation/jaron_lanier-the-myth-of-ai</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>IanDrake</author><text>&amp;gt;What makes you think the otherwise very intelligent people are wrong?&lt;p&gt;Mostly history.  Specifically the history of such predictions made by smart people of their own time that never came to pass.&lt;p&gt;I assure you, this has all been predicted before.  AI taking over the earth is always a decade away.&lt;p&gt;There are people who wear tin-foil hats and there are those that sell tin-foil hats.&lt;p&gt;The former think they&amp;#x27;re saving the world, while the latter are just making money off of the former.  It&amp;#x27;s the same business model as religion and global warming.</text></item><item><author>tim333</author><text>3) Because it&amp;#x27;s a real possibility. What makes you think the otherwise very intelligent people are wrong? Maybe we should look to the stupid and to philosophers who don&amp;#x27;t understand computers for answers?</text></item><item><author>IanDrake</author><text>The real question for me is:&lt;p&gt;What is motivating otherwise very intelligent people to promote the idea that AI will take all our jobs and&amp;#x2F;or enslave us?&lt;p&gt;Possible answers:&lt;p&gt;1) To prop up their investments in AI to get higher valuation.&lt;p&gt;2) To reach a political goal, such as basic income, which is often justified as necessary in a world where computers and robots take over the work force.&lt;p&gt;3) ?</text></item><item><author>tsunamifury</author><text>I think Jaron knows what many engineers who have worked on AI know: That the external promise of AI is far more inflated than the capability of the actual technology.  It&amp;#x27;s simply that when the current technology gets just complicated enough for the above-average person to no longer understand, everyone starts assigning magical properties and expectations to it.  This results in short term over-valuations, which inevitably lead to disappointment [1].&lt;p&gt;Jaron has observed this several times and rightly seems to be tired of repeating the same naive cycle.&lt;p&gt;As I&amp;#x27;m just now entering my second cycle and watching tech repeat itself again -- I&amp;#x27;m beginning to understand his weariness.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;hbr.org&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;the-overvaluation-trap&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;hbr.org&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;the-overvaluation-trap&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Houshalter</author><text>So their predictions are wrong, but yours are correct? You can&amp;#x27;t argue against someone else by saying all predictions are unreliable, and then insert your own predictions instead.&lt;p&gt;And nice, you managed to cram global warming denial in there too.</text></comment>