Website hosts predictions about the future of AI

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Tesla Founder Elon Musk recently issued more warnings about Artificial Intelligence:

“Nobody would suggest we should allow anyone to build nuclear warheads if they want. That would be insane. And mark my words, AI is far more dangerous than nukes.”

“I think Elon Musk’s real worry is that somebody will develop an artificial intelligence that is really really superior to what everybody else in the world has. And if one organization, whether it’s a company, country or an individual in their basement has a system like this, it grants a huge amount of power,” Anthony Aguirre, University of California, Santa Cruz Physics Professor, said.

Aguirre is the co-founder of an organization that Elon Musk is helping fund – the Future of Life Institute.

One of its goals is researching how to make AI systems beneficial. But to get a grip on how fast technology is moving, Aguirre created the website Metaculus.

“If we want to affect the future, it would really help to know what that future is going to be like. How would that future unfold?

Elon Musk at SXSW 2018 /VCG Photo

"We created a platform where crowds of people could get together and make predictions about science and technological issues. What you can do is see which people that make predictions are right over and over again.”

On Metaculus, you’ll find people making predictions on whether machine intelligence will be on par with humans by 2040.

There are fun ones too, like when will a robot completely assembly a generic Lego set. Questions go even deeper like this one: When will AI program programs that can program AIs?

“In the longer term of course you do think about if AI really gets equivalent to humans or better across a wide variety of disciplines then there could be the question of what does anyone do. Do we just have fun and play games all day? Is there anything worthwhile or meaningful left to do? And I think that’s a big question that no one has real answers to,” Aguirre said.