The new movie Oppenheimer spends three hours tracking the rise and fall of the inventor of the A-bomb; no doubt you have heard of this opus, which is so good that it even comes close to the ratings of Barbie.  

What is most interesting, however, is that I am seeing articles and columns comparing Dr. Oppenheimer’s reaction to his invention to the invention of GAI.  GAI is feared by some as the instrument of death to humankind under several theories, one of which is the “Skynet” scenario (from the Terminator movies–if you have been living under a rock for two decades, let me inform you that that premise is that computers become self-aware and try to kill all humans as enemies).

Are the inventors of GAI the unwitting heirs to Oppenheimer’s observation “Now I become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds”?   My conversations with a few scientists assure me that this is simply not possible (the other night I was told “AI is only math” and in any event the bomb was intended by humans to kill humans which is different).

There is no answer to the probability of the theoretical construct of computers killing us all, either because they become like humans or more likely because that could be a logical deduction if you are programmed to prevent let us say global warming or warfare among humans.  Or if your AI program just hallucinates.  Seems to me that stating that an error can never happen, as opposed to it being unlikely, is unprovable.

SO you folks can chew on that a bit while I take a few weeks’ vacation, where I may well not post anything, let alone something about AI.  Unless while in France I get a different set of insights or reactions from my French acquaintances.

“Je suis devenue la mort, le destructeur des mondes”?