Are you smarter than your smartphone?

The possible dangers (and benefits) of artificial intelligence

GLAS-8, Flickr Creative Commons

Artificial Intelligence has been around for half a century, yet we still debate what it might mean for the future. “I feel indifferent about the future of artificial intelligence because I feel like whatever is going to happen inevitable. All my reference points are from sci-fi movies and television shows and they all portray artificial intelligence as threatening and to be feared. I don’t know if the future will be that,” sophomore Nora Povejsil said.

Sharee Roman, Staff Writer
January 5, 2017

Believe or not, artificial intelligence has existed since 1961 when James Sagle wrote in Lisp – the second-oldest high-level programming language – the first symbolic integration program, SAINT, which solved calculus problems at the college freshman level. Today, police forces across the country use facial recognition software to identify and catch criminals, but this software is no longer considered as “artificial intelligence,” having become a routine technology.

9th grader Masha Ames is not a huge fan of technological advancements.

“Yeah I am [afraid of artificial intelligence] because when I think about artificial intelligence, I think of androids doing work for us and innovating. I’m really scared that later when scientists and researchers figure out how to make them look like us and act like us, we won’t be able to tell the difference,” Anes said.

On Aug. 31, an artificial intelligence computer named Cleverbot  fooled 59% of its human interlocutors into thinking it was itself a human during the Turing Test, but according to a research project conducted by UC Berkeley, “It takes less than a second to tell humans from androids.”

Sophomore Gabriel Konar-Steenberg is excited for the future of technology especially artificial intelligence because he considers himself a computer person.

“I am excited about what it will enable us to do, but I think there are a few ethical things we have to sort out. [In the future,] I can see the machines doing a lot more of the tasks like driving or serving food and things that don’t take as much creative thought. Humans will be doing more creative things well I mean we are doing all the creative things right now, but I think that would be our goal,” Konar-Steenberg said.

The takeover of intelligent robots might not be so crazy. According to LiveScience, “the idea of super-intelligent machines may sound like the plot of “The Terminator” or “The Matrix,” but many experts say the idea isn’t far-fetched. Some even think the singularity — the point at which artificial intelligence can match, and then overtake, human smarts — might happen in just 16 years.”

9th grader Jack Guinan disagrees: “Machines have never been able to break away from humans. There are certain human cognitive functions that robots can mimic. It just varies based on math and science. Then again, machines are never going to have what humans have in terms of innovation because they always have to follow a strict program,” he said.

Regardless, sophomore Nora Povejsil feels differently about artificial intelligence.

“I feel indifferent about the future of artificial intelligence because I feel like whatever is going to happen inevitable. If it was robots walking around and talking like us is the result, then that’s what happens. I myself find that difficult to imagine because it is not reality right now. All my reference points are from sci-fi movies and television shows and they all portray artificial intelligence as threatening and to be feared. I don’t know if the future will be that,” Povejsil said.

 

Image from Flickr Creative Commons, GLAS-8.  The original can be found HERE.