Microsoft founder Bill Gates assumed that humanity should be concerned about the artificial intelligence development. At least, that's what he said during his online chat with Reddit users. "I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence. First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don't understand why some people are not concerned," Bill Gates writes.
At the same time, Microsoft also works on developing AI technologies - take Kinect, Cortana and some other projects under development.
As for Stephen Hawking, one of the most prominent English theoretical physicists and cosmologists, in his December interview to BBC he said: "The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." And added: "Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded."
Prof. Hawking says the simple forms of artificial intelligence have already proved to be useful, but he fears the consequences of creating something that can match or surpass humans. "It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate," he said.
Stephen Hawking has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, and uses special voice synthesizer by Intel which is described at professors' website. He interacts with a computer through a program which uses a word prediction algorithm. The voice sounds mechanically and remains unchanged since the moment the technology was developed.
"It has become my trademark, and I wouldn't change it for a more natural voice with a British accent," he said. "I'm told that children who need a computer voice, want one like mine."
Another AI sceptic is head of Tesla and SpaceX Elon Musk. At the MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics department's Centennial Symposium in October 2014 he called artificial intelligence "our biggest existential threat": "If I were to guess what our biggest existential threat is, it's probably that.
So we need to be very careful with the artificial intelligence. With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon."
Earlier this month Musk made a $10 million donation to the Future of Life Institute to keep AI friendly and beneficial for the humanity.
