They Say I Say 5

 1. For this exercise, I read the essay, "'Rise of the Machines' Is Not a Likely Future" By Michael Littman. Littman disagrees with the idea that AI robots will cause an untimely demise for humans and take over the world. He disagrees multiple times in the essay, including once in his second paragraph, stating that robots taking over the Earth is an idea purely meant for science fiction. To further explain his disagreement, Littman demonstrates an example of the logic he disagrees with. He speaks on the topic of FLI (Future of Life Institute) and a book written by a member of FLI, Nick Bostrom, called Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. In the book, Bostrom establishes an idea that there are three steps until AI leads to the demise of humans. Littman agrees with the first and third steps of the idea, the first being that AI begins by developing at an alarmingly fast rate, and the third being that AI takes over the world, outcompeting humanity and causing it to no longer exist. Littman agrees with these points because the first point is currently happening in the world, and the third point is inevitable when it is mentioned in the second step that extremely advanced computers are created by humans. Littman disagrees with this second point, he says, "it's that second pair...that demonstrably violates what we know of computer science and natural intelligence" (Littman). Another point that Littman disagrees on is the idea that these new computers will be easy to build and program. Littman says that, in reality, it would be extremely difficult to obtain all the resources for these complicated robots, not to mention that there are some human features that are un-programmable. Although the majority of his argument disagrees with the beliefs that AI could one day take over the world, Littman does state in the second to last paragraph, stating that an increase in AI could cause issues such as technology issues leading to electricity power outages for some of the population, "algorithmic traders crashing the economy," or even minorities being underrepresented in the AI systems. Littman's final conclusion is that, artificial intelligence won't take over the world, but there are some problems we must look out for.

2. In some ways I agree with Michael Littman's beliefs that humans have nothing to worry about when it comes to Artificial Intelligence taking over the world, however I also disagree with his ideas. In his essay, "'Rise of the Machines' Is Not a Likely Future," Littman states multiple times that AI could never take over the world, considering that in order for this to happen, we would need copious amounts of resources and we would have to expand our knowledge on AI robots greatly before we are able to program them to work better than humans. While it is true that the robots would be difficult to build, it is not impossible. As Littman states in his essay, "the speed of computers has been increasing exponentially since the 1950s." If this speed continues, scientists will become advanced enough to create incredible robots in no time! Littman also states in his essay that it would be unlikely for AI researchers to create a robot they can not control. However, this mistake isn't impossible. Humans are flawed, we can never be perfect and there will always be some sort of mistake or imperfection in what we create. This inclination to make mistakes could be the downfall of humankind. Finally, even in todays society, there are robots or machines taking jobs from humans. The robots are faster, more efficient, and more cost-effective. If robots and machines are already putting humans out of work in 2020, what might happen in ten, twenty years when our knowledge of AI is even more vast? At the beginning of his essay, Littman states, "a world in which humans are enslaved or destroyed by super intelligent machines of our own creation is simply science fiction" (Littman). I do agree with the idea that humans could never be overthrown by robots as they are on the big screen, I do feel that humans have something to worry about when it comes the the rise of Artificial Intelligence.