“Robots will wipe out humankind” — We all have heard this concern for AI over and over again. The most recent one coming from Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin.
Thankfully, instead of making us imagine how evil robots would hunt us down one by one, he raised practical concerns over the issue of ethics in AI.
In Alphabet’s recent Founder’s Letters, Brin described how Google is implementing state-of-the-art technologies to provide solutions that can diagnose new diseases, discover new planetary systems and much more.
He highlighted the usefulness of AI in image recognition, language translation, and self-driving cars and how technology has touched “nearly every segment of modern society.”
“We’re in an era of great inspiration and possibility, but with this opportunity comes the need for tremendous thoughtfulness and responsibility as technology is deeply and irrevocably interwoven into our societies,” wrote Brin.
He warned that such a “technology renaissance” of artificial intelligence brings a shed load of threats with itself. Emphasizing on how greater power brings greater responsibilities, Sergey Brin questioned the impact of such powerful tools.
Brin suggested exercising caution in handling such technologies and spending more time in understanding the real impact of AI-powered systems on humans.
“How will they affect employment across different sectors? How can we understand what they are doing under the hood? What about measures of fairness? How might they manipulate people? Are they safe?”
He believes that these real-world concerns of how AI-based systems could steal human jobs or be misused for manipulating people by spreading fake news and propaganda “is an important discussion to have.”
However, Brin noted that he remains optimistic about artificial intelligence and technology as it could solve the greatest problems in the world. He also urged everyone to “tread with deep responsibility, care, and humility,” as we march towards the future.
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