The Bogus Bogeyman of the Brainiac Robot Overlord by James Kobielus.
From the post:
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One of the most overused science-fiction tropes is that of the super-intelligent “robot overlord” that, through human negligence or malice, has enslaved us all. Any of us can name at least one of these off the tops of our heads (e.g., “The Matrix” series). Fear of this Hollywood-fueled cultural bogeyman has stirred up anxiety about the role of machine learning, cognitive computing, and artificial intelligence (AI) in our lives, as I discussed in this recent IBM Big Data & Analytics Hub blog. It’s even fostering uneasiness about the supposedly sinister potential for our smart devices to become “smarter” than us and thereby invisibly monitor and manipulate our every action. I discussed that matter in this separate blog.This issue will be with us forever, much the way that UFO conspiracy theorists have kept their article of faith alive in the popular mind since the early Cold War era. In the Hollywood-stoked popular mindset that surrounds this issue, the supposed algorithmic overlords represent the evil puppets dangled among us by “Big Brother,” diabolical “technocrats,” and other villains for whom there’s no Superman who might come to our rescue.
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Highly entertaining take on the breathless reports that we have to stop some forms of research now or we will be enslaved and then eradicated by our machines.
You could construct a very large bulldozer and instruct it to flatten Los Angeles but that’s not an AI problem, that an HI (human intelligence) issue.
I first saw this because Bob DuCharme tweeted:
“The Bogus Bogeyman of the Brainiac Robot Overlord”: best article title I’ve seen in a long time
+1! to that!