BBC Science Focus Magazine – July 2023
English | 92 pages | pdf | 165.94 MB
Welcome at BBC Science Focus Magazine July 2023 issue
Artificial intelligence hasn’t taken over the planet just yet. But if, like me, you listen to a lot of radio, you’d think that the machines are about to inherit the Earth. Hours upon hours of airtime have been devoted to the rise of AI: a reaction to the evolution of bots that seem to think, write and create like us. These bots can hold a pretty decent conversation, create digital art based on your descriptions and even compose music, and in response, every news presenter seems to believe that we’ve got a full-blown existential crisis on our hands. Broadcasts typically go like this: experts are brought on to say whether it really is last orders for humankind while the presenter throws around words like doomsday, armageddon and annihilation, before they wrap up and chat about the afternoon’s cricket scores. Meanwhile, AI developers – you know, the people who could do something about all this – seem to be quitting their jobs en masse and throwing on sandwich boards emblazoned with ‘The end is nigh’.
As you might be able to tell, it’s a panic I can’t really recognise. It’s not that I think AI is harmless. From cybersecurity to privacy to employment, the proliferation of AI will pose serious threats. It’s just that none of the conversations on TV and radio reflects the conversations I’ve heard from those in the know – the people at universities working with AI. So for a dose of sanity, we decided to ask some of the world’s leading experts in machine intelligence to give us their takes on what issues will define the future of AI. Head to p56 to see what they said.
And if you’re looking for more on the future of AI, subscribe to our podcast Instant Genius where we dive into the latest thinking in science and technology from around the world.
Daniel Bennett, Editor
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