Wendy Sherman: “I will address an issue that will not affect us until the second half of this century, an issue that I first addressed…”

“I will address an issue that will not affect us until the second half of this century, an issue that I first addressed 23 years ago; the first year of this century. It is the issue of engineered intelligence. The race that the engineers don't know that they are in. A race between the bioengineers and DNA and the computer engineers and artificial intelligence, AI, to create a new level of intelligence on this planet; in effect, to develop our successor species. AI will have dramatic effects in the short-term. It will have benefits because it is a powerful tool. It will be used by evil men and women because it is a powerful tool. They will use it to accomplish their goals, and sometimes they will make mistakes. They will invade privacy. They will deny loans to people who should get them for wrongful reasons. These are issues that we have faced in the last hundred years wherein this or that technology has invaded our privacy or discriminated against people in this or that financial transaction. My focus is the second half of this century when we will face issues far beyond that. As to artificial intelligence, Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak and others have asked for a 6-month delay, but we will not see a 6-month delay in our research. Frankly, a 6-month delay wouldn't accomplish much because the issues surrounding AI are intractable, and we have squandered at least 23 years in failing to deal with them. Another 6 months will do us little good.…”