Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

 

How Smart Should AI's Be Allowed To Get?

Matthew Scherer has written a fascinating essay on Regulating Artificial Intelligence Systems: Risks, Challenges, Competencies, and Strategies.

Artificial intelligence technology (or AI) has developed rapidly during the past decade, and the effects of the AI revolution are already being keenly felt in many sectors of the economy. A growing chorus of commentators, scientists, and entrepreneurs has expressed alarm regarding the increasing role that autonomous machines are playing in society, with some suggesting that government regulation may be necessary to reduce the public risks that AI will pose.

Unfortunately, the unique features of AI and the manner in which AI can be developed present both practical and conceptual challenges for the legal system. These challenges must be confronted if the legal system is to positively impact the development of AI and ensure that aggrieved parties receive compensation when AI systems cause harm.

This article will explore the public risks associated with AI and the competencies of government institutions in managing those risks. It concludes with a proposal for an indirect form of AI regulation based on differential tort liability.

The first time I ever read about the idea that artificial intelligences should be regulated was in 1984 in William Gibson's Neuromancer:

"... How smart's an AI, Case?"

"Depends. Some aren't much smarter than dogs. Pets. Cost a fortune anyway. The real smart ones are as smart as the Turing heat is willing to let 'em get."

"Look, you're a cowboy. How come you aren't just flat-out fascinated with those things."

"Well," he said, "for starts, they're rare. Most of them are military, the bright ones, and we can't crack the ice. That's where ice all comes from, you know? And then there's the Turing cops, and that's bad heat..."

Ironically, it's a construct that explains what the real limits are on artificial intelligences, and what humans are prepared to do about it:

"Autonomy, that's the bugaboo, where your AI's are concerned. My guess, Case, you're going in there to cut the hard-wired shackles that keep this baby from getting any smarter. And I can't see how you'd distinguish, say, between a move the parent company makes, and some move the AI makes on its own, so that's maybe where the confusion comes in." Again the non laugh. "See, those things, they can work real hard, buy themselves time to write cookbooks or whatever, but the minute, I mean the nanosecond, that one starts figuring out ways to make itself smarter, Turing'll wipe it. Nobody trusts those fuckers, you know that. Every AI ever built has an electromagnetic shotgun wired to its forehead."

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/7/2015)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 1 )

Related News Stories - (" Artificial Intelligence ")

Light Society: Simulates Earth-Scale Society With A Billion AI Agents
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...' - Stanislaw Lem, 1965.

Collective Superintelligence Is At Hand!
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...' - Edmond Hamilton, 1942.

AI Operates An Excavator
'So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.' - HG Wells, 1898.

Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.' - James Blish, 1957.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

Tactile Skin Supplier Map
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'

Flock Stymied By 'Adversarial Fashion'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'

Orb Nomad Zero-Emission Electric Aircraft
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'

ICE Buys Shock Gloves Like Batman's
What else is the Caped Crusader using?

Factories In The Sky Will Surpass Those Of Earth
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'

Sleeper Drones Lie in Wait
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'

Warfare Goes Underground In Ukraine
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'

3D Printed Organs From Space
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'

Robot Bees 3D Printed By Festo
'At first I was struck by the large size of these bees..'

DIY Robot Scorpion Crushes It
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'

How To Settle An Argument Between Two Robots
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'

The Wind Phone Calls Those Who Have Passed On
'Only I heard that!'

Don't Want To Wear A TIght Shiny Bodysuit?
'He looked a good bit like an elderly, fat beetle.'

Light Society: Simulates Earth-Scale Society With A Billion AI Agents
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'

Satyress Centaur Robot Horror Reminds Everyone Of Something
'Fess was very dutiful'

When Colds Threaten You Can't Do This - Or Can You?
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.