It began last year when inventor Elon Musk, a man who spends considerable time on the cutting edge of technology, warned that with AI we are summoning the demon. 4 Recently, however, there has been a growing chorus of concern about the potential for AI. Reality has lagged those grim imaginings: It is hard to fear AI when the simplest demonstrations are more humorous than hair-raising.
3 None of the darker visions have deterred researchers and entrepreneurs from pursuing the field. Science fiction became fact in 1997 when IBM s chess-playing Deep Blue computer beat world champion Garry Kasparov.
About 30 years ago, James Cameron served up one dystopia created by AI in The Terminator. Photograph: Blutgruppe/ Blutgruppe/Corbis 2 These questions have been with us for a long time: Alan Turing in 1950 asked whether machines could think and that same year writer Isaac Asimov contemplated what might happen if they could in I, Robot. It is difficult to get exercised about connections between the Internet of Things and AI when the most visible indications are Siri (Apple s digital assistant), Google translate and smart houses, but a growing number of people, including many with a reputation for peering over the horizon, are worried. Picture two is a photograph of Osaka University professor Hiroshi Ishiguro and his robot double.ΔΆ ARTICLE The ethics of artificial intelligence The Japan Times, Editorial, February 4, As the Internet and digital systems penetrate further each day into our daily lives, concerns about artificial intelligence (AI) are intensifying. Picture one is a film still from Ex_Machina, staring Alicia Vikander. Do you think they reflect what our future might look like? II/ VISUAL DOCUMENTS Compare and contrast the two pictures below. Circle the few words you don t understand and look them up in a dictionary: I/ INTRODUCING THE TOPIC Think about the following questions: a) Would you describe yourself as a techie? Among your group of friends, are you usually the first or the last one to adopt a new technology? b) In your field of studies (geography, history, archaeology, economics, visual arts and history of arts, philosophy etc), is technological progress changing the way people work? c) Do you already use simple forms of artificial intelligence? d) Would you like to have a robot or a digital personal assistant? What would it do? e) Do you believe that machines can behave like humans? Why or why not? f) What traits do you think humans have that machines do not? g) Have you seen movies about artificial intelligence? Discuss what you thought of them. ROY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WORD CLOUD Examine this wordcloud about artificial intelligence.