Robot Revolution: 40% Fear Wipeout of Humanity By Machines
Robot Revolution: 40% Fear Wipeout By Machines
Robots will be "as important as the rise of homo
sapiens", but can humans share the planet with super-intelligent machines?
By Tom Cheshire, Technology Correspondent
Almost half of Britons fear that robots could one day wipe
out humanity, according to an exclusive Sky News survey.
And more than six out of 10 people in the UK think the
Government should protect jobs from being taken by robots, our survey suggests.
The results reveal the anxieties felt by ordinary people about
the coming robot revolution.
The technology is advancing fast, while the debate over
how it will affect all our lives has been loud and inconclusive.
Many have predicted unemployment due to increased automation.
Others argue that new categories of jobs will be created.
Prominent figures including Professor Stephen Hawking and
Bill Gates have also warned about the threat that "super-intelligent"
computers could pose to humanity.
Others, such as Google's director of engineering, Ray
Kurzweil, believe that this so-called singularity could lead to undreamt-of
benefits for society.
Professor Nick Bostrom, director of the Future of
Humanity Institute at Oxford University, told Sky News that it would be
"tragic" if super-intelligence were not developed.
"It is the keyhole we need to travel through in
order to realise our ultimate potential," he said.
But Prof Bostrom also urged caution.
He said: "If we one day develop machines that are
superior to us in terms of general intelligence, then this machine
super-intelligence might be in a very strong position to shape the future
according to its preferences.
"And hopefully those preferences will be aligned
with ours and it will be a great win.
"It will be something as important as the rise of
homo sapiens.
"If and when this happens, it is so important that
it is worth trying to start to work on the problem even decades in
advance."
Andrew McAfee, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, told Sky News that the robot revolution "is happening right
now".
"It's making us a great deal better off, a great
deal wealthier," he said.
"The challenge is that there is no law saying that
as that pie grows, it's going to be divided up in a fair way. We're seeing some
of that with the growth of inequality.
"We need to make smart choices with policy, with
education and a lot of areas to make sure we continue to divide up this growing
pie in a way that makes sense for people.
"These large technology transitions always require
smart societal and smart policy changes, they don't just happen on their own
and magically make everything okay."
:: Sky Data interviewed a nationally representative
sample of 1,711 Sky customers online 21-24 August 2015. Data weighted to the
profile of the population.
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