(task) Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says humans will be robots' pets | Technology | The Guardian

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4 comment to self-driving car

AI, robotics, existential threat

> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/25/apple-co-founder-steve-wozniak-says-humans-will-be-robots-pets <http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/25/apple-co-founder-steve-wozniak-says-humans-will-be-robots-pets>
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> Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says humans will be robots' pets
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> Apple’s early-adopting, outspoken co-founder Steve Wozniak thinks humans will be fine if robots take over the world because we’ll just become their pets.
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> After previously stating that a robotic future powered by artificial intelligence (AI) would be “scary and very bad for people” <http://www.afr.com/technology/apple-cofounder-steve-wozniak-on-the-apple-watch-electric-cars-and-the-surpassing-of-humanity-20150323-1m3xxk> and that robots would “get rid of the slow humans”, Wozniak has staged a U-turn and says he now thinks robots taking over would be good for the human race.
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> “They’re going to be smarter than us and if they’re smarter than us then they’ll realise they need us,” Wozniak said at the Freescale technology forum <http://www.techrepublic.com/article/wozniak-talks-self-driving-cars-apple-watch-and-how-ai-will-benefit-humanity/> in Austin. “We want to be the family pet and be taken care of all the time.”
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> “I got this idea a few years ago and so I started feeding my dog filet steak and chicken every night because ‘do unto others’,” he said.
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> Science fiction has been a surprisingly good predictor of technological development, from Star Trek’s tablet computers to the Demolition Man’s self-driving cars. Whether Terminator’s prediction of an advanced AI wiping out the human race is likely to stay fiction is open for debate.
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> Some of the most high-profile technology pioneers and the greatest minds of science including Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking have warned of the dangers of AI.
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> Musk invested $10m of his own money <http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/16/elon-musk-donates-10m-to-artificial-intelligence-research> into an AI firm so that he could keep an eye on it, describing the technology as “our biggest existential threat”.
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> Others, including co-founder of Google’s advanced AI company DeepMind Mustafa Suleyman say that the technology is already with us, working on our smartphones and computers and that they are simply “production breakthroughs” <http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/09/deepmind-artificial-intelligence-tool-humans-control>.
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> For Wozniak, it will be “hundreds of years” before AI is capable of taking over, but that by the time it does it will no longer be a threat to our existence: “They’ll be so smart by then that they’ll know they have to keep nature, and humans are part of nature. I got over my fear that we’d be replaced by computers. They’re going to help us. We’re at least the gods originally.”
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> • Yes, androids do dream of electric sheep <http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/18/google-image-recognition-neural-network-androids-dream-electric-sheep>
> • Computer says no: Amazon uses AI to combat fake reviews <http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/22/amazon-ai-fake-reviews-star-ratings-astroturfing>