The Popularity Of 'Westworld' Points To Our Anxiety About AI, The Show's Creators Say

We've been concerned about it since Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. Metropolis, Terminator, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Ex Machina are all examples of things we have built turning on us. And it probably isn't an unreasonable fear... We've seen AI designed to optimize stock prices cause huge drops and/or outlandish increases in individual stock prices, and even drops across the whole stock market.

Westworld is just the latest in a series of cautionary tales regarding the things we build, and how we need to be aware of the risks involved.

Meh.

Watched a couple of episodes. It was better than most TV, but I haven't kept up with it. To people concerned about AI, I would say that the smartest computer on the planet, running the smartest software on the planet, right now, is about as intelligent as your toaster. The term AI is made out by sales, marketing, and media types to represent artificial general intelligence (AGI), aka strong AI, which is like what you see in Westworld (or 2001: A Space Odyssey). However, that kind of AI doesn't exist. What does exist is autonomous problem-solving capabilities, in which machines can perform categories of tasks without needing much human help. This is called weak AI, or if you're me, "not AI."