*Neither do I. This essay isn't gonna make the myths go away, but maybe someday the Voltaire of AI will show up, and we can leave the myths in the hands of the kind of people who always thunk mythically about everything.
The key is probably that the myths are actively getting in the way of the profit motive
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This is the state of AI today. After so much talking about the risks of ultraintelligent machines, it is time to turn on the light, stop worrying about sci-fi scenarios, and start focusing on AI’s actual challenges, in order to avoid making painful and costly mistakes in the design and use of our smart technologies.
Let me be more specific. Philosophy doesn’t do nuances well. It might fancy itself a model of precision and finely honed distinctions, but what it really loves are polarisations and dichotomies. Internalism or externalism, foundationalism or coherentism, trolley left or right, zombies or not zombies, observer-relative or observer-independent, possible or impossible worlds, grounded or ungrounded … Philosophy might preach the inclusive vel (‘girls or boys may play’) but too often indulges in the exclusive aut aut (‘either you like it or you don’t’).
The current debate about AI is a case in point. Here, the dichotomy is between those who believe in true AI and those who do not. Yes, the real thing, not Siri in your iPhone, Roomba in your living room, or Nest in your kitchen (I am the happy owner of all three). Think instead of the false Maria in Metropolis (1927); Hal 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), on which Good was one of the consultants; C3PO in Star Wars (1977); Rachael in Blade Runner (1982); Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987); Agent Smith in The Matrix (1999) or the disembodied Samantha in Her (2013). You’ve got the picture. Believers in true AI and in Good’s ‘intelligence explosion’ belong to the Church of Singularitarians. For lack of a better term, I shall refer to the disbelievers as members of the Church of AItheists. Let’s have a look at both faiths and see why both are mistaken. And meanwhile, remember: good philosophy is almost always in the boring middle....
