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attention surrounding them, current ¬Ÿ
systems are still rudimentary; they’ve
only just begun to recognize faces and
decipher speech. So as Andrew Ng, an ¬Ÿ
researcher at Stanford, puts it, worrying
about ¬³Ÿ is similar to worrying about
“overpopulation on Mars”: it presup-
poses a whole lot that would need to
happen Ãrst. Researchers should be trying
to make ¬Ÿ work, he contends, rather
than devising ways to stunt it.
The psychologist Steven Pinker goes
a step further, arguing that the dire
concerns over ¬³Ÿ are “self-refuting.”
The bleak scenarios, he argues,

depend on the premises that (1)

humans are so gifted that they can

design an omniscient and omnipotent

¬Ÿ, yet so idiotic that they would give it

control o” the universe without testing

how it works; and (2) the ¬Ÿ would be

so brilliant that it could Ãgure out how

to transmute elements and rewire

brains, yet so imbecilic that it would

wreak havoc based on elementary

blunders o” misunderstanding.

The idea that an out-of-control ¬³Ÿ
system would harm humanity depends on
speculation as much as science; commit-
ting substantial resources to preventing
that outcome would be misguided. As
Pinker notes, dystopian prophecies ignore
the role that norms, laws, and institutions
play in regulating technology. More
convincing arguments take those factors
into account and call for basic safeguards,
implemented rigorously. Here, the history
o” cybersecurity oers a useful parallel.
When engineers created the Internet,
they overlooked the need to build strong
security into the software protocol.
Today, this poses a major vulnerability. AŸ
designers should learn from that mistake

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