After almost 79 years on this beleaguered planet, let me say one thing: this can’t end well. Really, it can’t.
In fact, among those who have spoken out fearfully on the subject is the man known as “the godfather of AI,” Geoffrey Hinton, a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence. He only recently quit his job at Google to express his fears about where we might indeed be heading, artificially speaking. As he told the New York Times recently, “The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people — a few people believed that, but most people thought it was way off. And I thought it was way off. I thought it was 30 to 50 years or even longer away. Obviously, I no longer think that.”
Now, he fears not just the coming of killer robots beyond human control but, as he told Geoff Bennett of the PBS NewsHour, “the risk of super intelligent AI taking over control from people… I think it’s an area in which we can actually have international collaboration, because the machines taking over is a threat for everybody. It’s a threat for the Chinese and for the Americans and for the Europeans, just like a global nuclear war was.”
And that, indeed, is a hopeful thought, just not one that fits our present world of hot war in Europe, cold war in the Pacific, and division globally.
Green bans
‘Black ban’ was a term already used by the union movement to describe a particular kind of activism that involved strike action against a particular job or employer in order to protect the economic interests of workers.
Drawing on the new conception of unionism, Jack Mundey coined the term ‘green ban’ in 1973. There were three main kinds of green ban:
- defending open, public, spaces
- protecting existing housing from demolition when its demolition was intended to make way for freeways or high-rise development
- preserving older, not-yet-heritage-listed buildings.
The term ‘green’ was chosen – rather than ‘black’ – because it was considered more in keeping with the nature of the activity, which involved a strong concern for the environment.
1971: First green bans imposed in Sydney
Source: First green bans | National Museum of Australia
After almost 79 years on this beleaguered planet, let me say one thing: this can’t end well. Really, it can’t.
In fact, among those who have spoken out fearfully on the subject is the man known as “the godfather of AI,” Geoffrey Hinton, a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence. He only recently quit his job at Google to express his fears about where we might indeed be heading, artificially speaking. As he told the New York Times recently, “The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people — a few people believed that, but most people thought it was way off. And I thought it was way off. I thought it was 30 to 50 years or even longer away. Obviously, I no longer think that.”
Now, he fears not just the coming of killer robots beyond human control but, as he told Geoff Bennett of the PBS NewsHour, “the risk of super intelligent AI taking over control from people… I think it’s an area in which we can actually have international collaboration, because the machines taking over is a threat for everybody. It’s a threat for the Chinese and for the Americans and for the Europeans, just like a global nuclear war was.”
And that, indeed, is a hopeful thought, just not one that fits our present world of hot war in Europe, cold war in the Pacific, and division globally.
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