The Guardian, reports that while Musk was speaking at the National Governors Association summer meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, Musk said: “Normally the way regulations are set up is when a bunch of bad things happen, there’s a public outcry, and after many years a regulatory agency is set up to regulate that industry.”
But with AI, this is different.
Reactive regulation, Musk argues, “takes forever. That, in the past, has been bad but not something which represented a fundamental risk to the existence” of civilization.
Musk was suggesting a ‘Terminator’ movie-series type risk being posed by AI, if something isn’t done quickly.
The Development of Technology Replacing Humans
Machines of various types have existed for centuries. But Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the controversial technology that’s winding its way into almost every industry, as it continues to improve and develop.
In some fast-food establishments, automated touch screens are replacing human workers who performed the job of order taker/cashier.
A similar pattern has been in place for years where self-checkout is growing at retail stores. But more sophisticated AIs keep take care of scheduling and tracking appointments, among other small tasks.
More sophisticated examples of AI millions interact with daily are Siri, Cortana, OK Google, which are common to modern smartphones and other devices. Such AI provides near-instant Google search results, maps out and navigates our routes on road trips. If Musk and others who are developing self-driving cars have their way, that type of AI may take human instructions and drive us to our destinations.
Automated Manufactured Home Factories?
In the manufactured home industry at least one company has previously disclosed to MHProNews that they were considering an automated plant that would only require 3 people to maintain.
A manufactured home community owner who had tech and other businesses interests told MHProNews a few years ago that the risk for much of the home buying base of the HUD Code home industry was significant. Why? Because so much of it could be replaced by automation. What would happen to those workers?
Sophia, Asimov and Real Concerns, vs. Fake News
While millions are following the latest iteration of the long-ago debunked Russian-Trump conspiracy stories, Musk and others say the risks posed by AI that might someday out pace human control is a fearsome possibility.
In the Daily Business News initial report on this issue some weeks ago, Soheyla Kovach noted that what may be needed was a solution that science fiction writer Issac Asimov proposed decades ago. The 3 Laws of Robotics.
Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics
For those who never read Asimov, his three laws – first penned in 1942 – included:
Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics”. Three Laws are:
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
Sophia…
Kovach noted in her report that Amnesty International chief Salil Shetty asked at a conference that featuring Sophia, “What happens when (Sophia fully) wakes up or some other machine, servers running missile defence or managing the stock market?”
The solution, he said, is “to make the machines care about us.”
Thus, the Asimov solution.
“Just as MHProNews has been monitoring developing technologies,” said Kovach, “such as 3D printing for several years (linked here and here), we plan to track developments and industry responses to the emerging automation, AI, robotics and their related potential and actual impact on factory built housing, and society.”
The recent Daily Business News report on Sophia – see photo/graphic above – is linked here. ##
(Image credits are as shown above, and when provided by third parties, are shared under fair use guidelines.)
