As an authority on artificial intelligence, his opinion counts, and he arrived at the Hay Festival with a calming message, “My view of the future is not dystopian. ” In fact he displayed a great reverence for technology, and encouraged the audience to do the same.
“We should stand in extraordinary awe,” he said, comparing the technology in smart phones and other modern devices to the Pyramids. He said components that make these things work are the “cathedrals that we can’t observe”.
Overall His tone was one of celebration, not fear. But the question was raised that as technology improves, what will become of these robots, and the humans who made them? Is this a dangerous road?
Shadbolt waved the concern away with a reference to Watson, a robot created by IBM that beat human contestants on the quiz show Jeopardy! This wasn’t self-
awareness, this was simply programming, Shadbolt told the room, assuring the crowd that Watson felt “no sense of smug satisfaction”.
Shadbolt agreed that there were other concerns for technology, their use in warfare for instance, but the question of robotic consciousness wasn’t a large
concern for him. They are “extraordinarily capable” he said, but not “self-aware”.
If you missed this you may enjoy Event 225, Computational Biology, with
Dr Elisa Passini, at 11.30am on Tuesday 29 May.