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AI Concerns: Could humanity be wiped out within 10 years?

Researchers close to the frontier of artificial intelligence are warning that future systems could become too powerful to control. The most alarming numbers are disputed, but the debate is moving quickly from specialist labs into decisions that could affect workplaces, businesses and public services.

localTV, local news, artificial intelligence, AI safety, Geoffrey Hinton, Anthropic, OpenAI, AI extinction risk, superintelligence, AI regulation, UK AI Security Institute, AI risks

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00:00Artificial intelligence is already becoming part of everyday work and public services.
00:06The bigger concern is what could come next. Systems more capable than people across many
00:13tasks with greater independence to act. Some researchers warn that could eventually threaten
00:18human control. The fact that we're starting to talk about the dangers of AI is no bad thing
00:24because quite clearly this this thing seems to have sort of looned up from nowhere. I mean we
00:28weren't talking about AI five years ago for instance so I mean it's a rapidly developing
00:33sort of science if I sort of use that expression and technology and of course that's all it is
00:39and let's face it you know a generation ago I remember sort of as a child in 1970s you know
00:43computers were sort of you know something of the future and of course the point is we rely on them
00:48for our everyday lives. Everything that we do is used as a sort of a computer and I've got one
00:52in
00:53my pocket it's called a telephone so we use it for sort of for obviously sort of talking to people
00:57doing our sort of shopping going on holiday etc etc etc so we live in a world full of sort
01:02of systems
01:03which you know dominate our sort of everyday lives. Now of course that's great because of course we
01:07always believe that we're in control. The reality is of course the systems are sort of far more
01:11complex than we know and of course the point is though we see what happens and of course we had
01:16this very recently with due to sort of a glitch of course the sort of the reasons which you know
01:20it was supposed to be one rogue plane from the military caused a complete sort of breakdown in
01:25terms of air traffic control and of course we saw what happened you know planes in the wrong place
01:29people being stuck in airports for a couple of days and so on and so forth. The concern centres on
01:35control. Safety features are testing whether increasingly capable AI systems can reliably follow human
01:43instructions and limits. Frontier models have already shown stronger abilities in areas such as cyber
01:49activity and autonomous decision making although tests are often conducted under control conditions
01:57and do not show that current AI can take over well defended systems. Some researchers put the risk of
02:04catastrophic loss in double figures others say those percentages cannot be scientifically verified
02:12because the hypothetical systems do not yet exist while pointing to immediate risks such as fraud,
02:19misinformation, cyber attacks and unreliable outputs. I'm reminded of the sort of the uh the Lord of
02:26the Rings when of course of um J.R. Tolkien he talked about sort of you know the the elves
02:29um and the sort
02:31of the the end of sort of the um the world as it were because of the um the orcs
02:35and sort of the
02:35sarum and um and slight divergence of course the line is don't put your sort of uh trust in humanity
02:40because of course they're fickle and we know that for as long as humanity being about they sort of they
02:44raise armies they want to take over territory we've now got a sort of something that potentially and of
02:50course this is what the sort of the great fear is it will start to sort of to want to
02:53take over
02:53territory and it will dominate and it may see human beings as being sort of not worthless creatures so
02:59much but something if it can't sort of dominate them in the way it wants to
03:02it'll somehow try and destroy it and of course as I've just said in terms of the systems that we
03:07rely on for our everyday sort of being including sort of our utilities which are all sort of you
03:11know they're run by sort of electronic systems as it were and computerized networks yeah if all of
03:16those closed down for whatever reason we would be in a pretty miserable sort of state and we'd be back
03:21to sort of to uh if not the stone age not far off that so it's a real difficult one
03:26and of course
03:26there's this idea that what we need to do is design systems which have sort of empathy and over
03:32the ability if you like to sort of to have a kill switch to stop it but of course that
03:36requires
03:37people to be in control if I can just add there is a great difficulty we're talking about handfuls
03:42of people Jeffrey Hinton you know developed the system but of course it's now in the hands of
03:46sort of you know global billionaires so of course what we're going to see is the sort of the you
03:51know
03:51the control was been by a handful of people and we've seen that already in technology and of course I
03:56think of the sort of the Elon Musk and the Jeff Bezos you know the sort of the um the
03:59corporate billionaires who
04:01sort of you know they dominate our lives in ways which is never intended and that's not a good
04:05thing either so clearly what's the way forward it's about regulation I suppose um although that's
04:11difficult because these things are sort of global entities but somehow or other we have to sort of
04:16design these systems that shut such a way is that they can't sort of either hijacked and of course we
04:20see absolutely increasing with sort of box from sort of malign states Russia in particular but also
04:25more particularly to allow this thing to sort of to develop a life of its own um and somehow sort
04:30of
04:31build in the sort of thing the human features but dare I say human features can be sort of good
04:35largely but of course we sort of know that human beings they can be sort of capricious at the sort
04:40of
04:40the best of times and they they need to sort of to be sort of monitored and policed um which
04:45of course is
04:45difficult there's no scientific consensus that AI will cause human extinction or that systems more
04:52capable than humans across most tasks will be built the debate will continue as models become more
04:59powerful for businesses public services and households the key questions are how much autonomy
05:07AI should have what safeguards are needed and who is responsible when systems go wrong
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