Microsoft Chief says Researchers Should Stop AI “Consciousness’ Projects

James Cameron was viewed as very futuristic when Terminator debuted in 1984, and when Terminator 2 Judgement Day arrived in 1991, we were perhaps a little closer to wondering if that apocolypse would actually happen.  Now, the tech is on the doorstep?

  Microsoft chief speaks out against 'concious' AI research

Microsoft's Director of AI, Mustafa Suleyman, recently told CNBC and other tech leaders that only human beings can achieve consciousness, and those in the world of AI should stop with experiments to replicate it.

He recently spoke at a major tech conference in Houston, Texas, and said "I don't think that is work that people should be doing." 

He believes AI should be developed to help humans, but not create artificial creatures capable of human-like reasoning and emotion.

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  It's become a hot-button topic, as Meta and Elon Musk both have super-intelligence projects that have seen billions of dollars invested in creating the 'next level' of reasoning.

This field of research is known as AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence, and its goal is to achieve reasoning on an equal playing field with humans. Suleyman says AGI may achieve super-intelligence, but lacks the ability to feel genuine human emotion. He and other critics of AGI research say even AGI would only be a 'copy' of a human being, but without the 'soul.'

Suleyman even wrote a book 2 years ago warning about such research and development, and the directions it shoud go instead.

He spoke about a new feature from Microsoft that is called 'real talk,' it's designed as part of their CoPilot program, but intended to challenge the user's perspectives instead of being synchophanitc, or being a 'yes man."    Suleyman told CNBC and Geekwire:

"Suleyman described real talk as sassy and said it had recently roasted him, calling him “the ultimate bundle of contradictions” for warning of the dangers of AI in his book while also accelerating its development at Microsoft."

So, the computer criticized him for warning about its capabilities and behaviors...?

In Carmeron's Terminator 2 Judgement Day, we are told the Skynet computer system began to learn at a geometric rate, and eventually came to view humans as a threat. When they tried to pull the plug, it retaliated and launched all the defense weapons under its control...

So, if AGI continues to be developed, as long as it's not left in charge of anything deadly, maybe it would work?  Hmmm...