Terminator blamed for growing fear of artificial intelligence

There are calls for greater public awareness of the future role of artificial intelligence amid claims that many people’s fears are based on films, Sky News reports.

Rashik Parmar, chief executive of BCS, a Graduate Institute of Information Technology, says Hollywood blockbusters like The Terminator have “rooted” public concerns about artificial intelligence.

His words come after the San Francisco-based Center for Artificial Intelligence Security issued a letter warning that the technology could destroy humanity, a risk that should be treated with the same urgency as pandemics or nuclear war.

Parmar argues: “There must be a healthy skepticism about big technologies and how they use artificial intelligence, which is why regulation is key to gaining public trust. But many of our ingrained fears and anxieties also stem from films, media and books. such as the characteristics of artificial intelligence in Ex Machina, The Terminator, and even going back to the ideas of Isaac Asimov that inspired the movie I, Robot.”

While AI can perform life-saving tasks such as algorithms for analyzing medical images such as x-rays and ultrasounds, its rapidly growing capabilities and increasing use through services such as the ChatGPT chatbot are worrisome.

Last month, leading British computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, considered the “godfather of artificial intelligence,” left his position at Google with a warning that AI could fuel disinformation and put huge numbers of people out of work.

In recent months, the regulation of artificial intelligence has come under scrutiny from governments around the world.

Earlier this month, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak held talks with executives from the OpenAI company behind ChatGPT; as well as Google DeepMind and Anthropic. The prime minister also met with Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google’s parent company Alphabet, at the Darlington Economics Campus.

A spokesman for Downing Street said: “They talked about striking the right balance to ensure that the right regulatory barriers are in place and at the same time promote innovation.”

Parmar said regulation is needed to ensure that AI “grows responsibly.”

“Should movies and media change? No. It just proves that we need to educate the public more about the reality of AI and have it become part of the skills and teaching we get when we are very young,” he added.

Meanwhile, the story of the “murder” of a US military AI-powered drone of its own operator during a simulation exercise received a strange continuation.

According to The Guardian, it is now reported that a US Air Force colonel allegedly “misspoke” when he said at a Royal Aeronautical Society conference last month that the drone had killed its operator during a simulated test because the pilot was trying to cancel its mission.

The “confusion,” according to the new version of events, began with a post on the society blog describing a presentation by Colonel Tucker “Cinco” Hamilton, Air Force Chief of AI Testing and Operations and experimental fighter test pilot, at the Future Combat Summit. Air and Space Capabilities in London in May.

According to a blog post, Colonel Hamilton told the audience that in a simulation to test an AI-equipped drone trained and stimulated to kill its targets, the operator in some cases instructed the drone not to kill its targets, and the drone responded by killing the operator.

The comments have sparked deep concern about the use of artificial intelligence in weapons and extensive online discussion. But the US Air Force on Thursday evening denied that the test had been carried out. The Royal Aeronautical Society responded in a statement on Friday that Hamilton retracted his comments and clarified that “a simulated AI drone” was a hypothetical “thought experiment”.

“We have never done this experiment, and we would not have to do it, to understand that this is a plausible result,” said Hamilton.

Controversy arises as the US government begins to tackle the issue of how to regulate artificial intelligence, writes The Guardian. Concerns about the technology have been echoed by AI ethicists and researchers, who argue that while the technology has ambitious goals, such as a potential cancer treatment, it is still a long way off. Meanwhile, they point to long-standing evidence of existing harm, including the increased use of sometimes unreliable surveillance systems that misidentify black and brown people and can lead to police oversight and false arrests, the perpetuation of misinformation on many platforms, and the potential harm from using emerging technologies for power and use weapons in crisis zones.

“You can’t have a conversation about artificial intelligence, intelligence, machine learning, autonomy if you’re not going to talk about ethics and AI,” Hamilton said during his May presentation.

Hamilton argues that the “thought experiment” is still worth considering when choosing whether and how to use artificial intelligence in weapons.

“While this is a hypothetical example, it illustrates real-world issues with AI capabilities, which is why the Air Force is committed to the ethical development of AI,” he said in a statement clarifying his initial comments.

For her part, US Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said the colonel’s comments were taken out of context. “The Department of the Air Force has not conducted any such AI drone simulations and remains committed to the ethical and responsible use of AI technology,” Stefanek said.