19 December 2016

Verge 2021: “Humanity and AI will be inseparable”

Do you think we’ll get to a point where we can ask personal assistants something like, Oh, the check engine light turned on in my car, should I take it in? Or Google, I just got this job offer, should I take it?

I think you might. These types of questions are decision-making questions — but suppose you had to decide between health insurance plans and you were confused about all the options. You might tell Alexa as you were going to sleep, “Alexa, why don’t you look at all these health insurance plans, or all these cars I can buy, or these schools my kid can go to”, and it could compile a report for you overnight.

Russell Brandom

“Alexa, who should I vote for president?” – I think that’s a safe question to leave for the AI, right?

More AI experts talking about humans increasingly delegating decision making to ‘smart’ algorithms. As if America didn’t just get a bitter taste of what that would be like in the current election: Facebook’s news feed ranking amplifying fake news to drive engagement up. The expert interviewed here at least acknowledges the need for algorithms to be explainable and incorporate feedback from people when they don’t agree with the recommendations offered by AI assistants.

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