Artificial Intelligence – by Tom Daly
August 9, 2018
Date/Time
Date(s) - 09/08/2018
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Location
Online
Categories
Artificial Intelligence researchers and scientists are working hard to “Solve Intelligence” (in the words of Google DeepMind) and are investing vast amounts of time and money to create human level AI or better. Given the stunning breakthroughs in the field of AI over the last decade, there is an increasing expectation amongst scientists and researchers that this can be done. I.e., a human level AI or even a Super Intelligent AI can be created that is vastly superior to us. In the scientific and technology communities, it is broadly assumed that creating a super intelligent AI would then solve all of humanities’ issues from climate change, to cancer, and perhaps even ageing and mortality. Hence, God need not apply.
However, at the same time, in sections of the same communities, alarm bells have started to sound about the potential dangers of machines that are much smarter than humans. An increasing number of scientists and technologists such as the late Stephen Hawking, Max Tegmark and Elon Musk (to name just a few) have been speaking out about the dangers of super intelligent machines. Interestingly, the enormous efforts of human minds to create human level AI start to raise some serious questions about the origins of the human mind. Simply put, if so much human intelligence and passion/will is being used to create an intelligence, does this add weight to the fact that a mind and a will, rather than random chance, created human intelligence in the first place?
This talk will introduce some of the work being done to achieve human level AI and focus on the “narratives” that arise, or are perpetuated by this work, as well as examine some philosophical and theological implications.
Tom Daly is an IT professional, with over 30 years’ experience and is a graduate of the University of Adelaide. Tom moved with his young family to California in 1996 with Sun Microsystems where he worked on the Java programming language and all things internet and database. Tom was fortunate to bring his job back from California to Adelaide and “telecommutes” to Silicon Valley where he now works for Oracle Corporation (who purchased Sun in 2010). Tom currently works on various hi-tech projects mainly related to the Cloud and is well placed to research and understand the latest status and wide-ranging implications of AI. Tom has been asking tough questions of his Christian faith for many years now and is confident that the more scrutiny orthodox Christian faith is subjected to the more it provides a coherent (and breathtaking) worldview.
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