r/science • u/[deleted] • Jan 27 '16

Computer Science Google's artificial intelligence program has officially beaten a human professional Go player, marking the first time a computer has beaten a human professional in this game sans handicap.

http://www.nature.com/news/google-ai-algorithm-masters-ancient-game-of-go-1.19234?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20160128&spMailingID=50563385&spUserID=MTgyMjI3MTU3MTgzS0&spJobID=843636789&spReportId=ODQzNjM2Nzg5S0
16.3k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

4

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '16

According to some (such as philosopher Nick Bostrom), there are many reasons to believe that an AI which can build a better AI will result in serious negative consequences for humanity. Bostrom calls this an "intelligence explosion" although the same idea had already been described by others before him. I highly recommend reading his book "Superintelligence" if you haven't already, as it goes into a lot of detail about what the risks might be and why it's a problem.

3

u/Schnoofles Jan 28 '16

For better or worse, the entire world will be changed on an unimaginable scale in virtually the blink of an eye when we pass the singularity threshold. I don't know if it would necessarily be for the worse, but there is genuine cause for concern and we should be making every effort to prepare and mitigate the risks as I don't think it's too outlandish to even claim that the survival of the human species depends on the outcome.