Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking Win Luddite Award

For the record, I'm with Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking on this one. Robots (and AI) are going to KILL US ALL!!!

Still, both visionaries were identified as members of a "loose coalition" of "alarmists" who won its 2015 Luddite Award, a prize given by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation. For good measure, Bill Gates, the man most responsible for bringing computers into our homes, was also named.

By Luddites?? Do they know what that word means? I certainly am not in a state of "fear or hysteria"

BTW, an asteroid could destroy the earth, super volcanoes could go off, or pandemic could wipe us out....deal with it.

I agree with Musk & Hawking -- WE are the greatest threat to our own survival.

Scientific discoveries are great, and I fully support them and continued research, but we really need to start putting controls on some of them and evaluating how dangerous to be.

To paraphrase Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park), too many scientists are worried about what could be done, rather than what SHOULD be done.

Case in point: go look up CRISPR. The potential uses are fantastic and so is how much easier it makes gene splicing. Unfortunately, the possibility of a maniac or terrorist now using it to create something impossible to stop is utterly terrifying (think "12 Monkeys").

I think they are just being nitpicky over their tone ... bottom line is that we are on the verge of several technologies that have enormous ethical concerns and implications ... we could keep rushing into the abyss and deal with the aftereffects when we get there or we can take a selah and work out the ethics ahead of the abyss ... some of the technologies we should be thinking about legally:

- A.I. ... although I don't expect them to discover any threatening AI anytime soon we should decide what the rights of a sentient machine would be (if we could create one somehow) ... as STNG put it, "A single Data - and forgive me, Commander - is a curiosity. A wonder, even. But thousands of Datas - isn't that becoming... a race? And won't we be judged by how we treat that race?" ... we should work out the ethics of AI ahead to avoid future pain

- Cloning ...another area where our technology is outstripping the ethics ... if we clone a person and the clone is sentient and aware, what are the rights of the clone ... with the imature cloning technologies we have right now where it took thousands of aborted or deformed attempts before their success with Dolly the Sheep (and even she suffered horribly), what are our ethical responsibilities to human clone attempts

- Genetic enhancement/modification ... we aren't quite up to the capabilities of the Eugenics Wars or Gattaca, but we aren't far away ... this is another area where we should think through the ethical and legal guidelines before stepping off the cliff

There is nothing wrong with a measured response and approach to complicated and dangerous scientific processes ... in fact it is probably the only responsible approach

and of course the AI are the ones who put these "awards" out so that people laugh and dismiss those who are trying to warn us!!!!!

I was sort of hoping to BE a robot by now.

The issue, according to the ITIF, isn't what Musk and others are saying. It's how they say it.

"It's not inappropriate to raise the issue that AI be developed in a safe and responsible way," said Atkinson. "The problem is their tone scares people."

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I guess people should be developing thicker skin, there are very serious implications of technologies that are already developed for the destruction of mankind. You know the whole 'self-destruction' part of the Drake Equation?

I can't imagine their tone being more alarmist than say, that of climate changers, PETA style fundamentalists who like arson a whole lot, or religious groups.

Already on a small scale we have technologies that should make any acronym agency a bit freaked; a gas powered RC aircraft with 1kg or greater load of ANNM. Like it's a tiny little cruise missile.

Not to mention global powers that intend to 'police the world' and use proxy wars to attempt to stay clean. the Russian Federation bombs ISIS and anti-Assad forces, Turkey and Pro-NATO forces bomb ISIS and pro-Assad forces. Turkey shoots down Su-24m... Supposedly drones and bombing aircraft on the pro-NATO side have stealth fighter escorts (rumor).

But hey, these technology and scientific pioneers are alarmist! We live in a wonderful world, right?

First thing I always look at with these things is what are the political motivations of the critics, and are they in some group's back pocket.

My concern with advanced AI is that its first major application will likely be in the field of warfare. I wouldn't be surprised if in the future a nation could send an army of intelligent killing machines to clear out an entire town somewhere in a third world country with no accountability. No soldiers to tell the story, no dead ones to stir up resistance to war, no reporters to answer to, just do whatever you please.

That's my fear, the rise of some "mecha-Stalin" age where no one can stand up to such governments.

Whether or not that's eventually followed by "Skynet" is of secondary concern lol.

Dunno, I think advanced AI is likely to take place in finance, high frequency trading, etc. Unlimited amount of funds, insane amount of data, huge incentive for a first mover.

hummm steam cell research pregrant women being attacked for the ambioctic fluid
ai research... lead to creating copies of people so close that they were used to send spam pretending to be spammers trying to con people of details...

I'm noticing a trend the tech is not the issue the con artists and people pretending to be scientist....