Robert Reich, associate director of Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, likened people working in AI to those working in more established, equally ethical health technology. Reich suggested that AI researchers are more like late-stage teens, with their frontal brain undeveloped and, as a result, a low sense of social responsibility. This connection is relevant since teenagers are frequently risk-taking thrill-seekers, and individuals working in AI are always discussing how the uncontrolled technology they’re developing may obliterate mankind. Furthermore, many tech bros want to live forever, and many of them want to achieve so with the assistance of artificial intelligence. The desire to create AI is viewed as a mission to create a superior entity in our image.
People in Silicon Valley are seeking to create a deity in a machine or to become a god to a machine. However, the field is new, and the leaders of the AI race are not teenagers, and their frontal cortexes are fully grown. Adults are making conscious decisions, and how those decisions affect the rest of us remains to be seen.
