EVIL ROBOTS, KILLER COMPUTERS, AND OTHER MYTHS

In this debut technology treatise, investor and entrepreneur Shwartz argues for more modest expectations for the future of artificial intelligence and a cleareyed assessment of its potential pitfalls.

The author observes that the general public’s conception of the promise of AI is largely the result of “fear-inducing hype” of the dystopian threat of a machine-led tyranny. Even notable technologists have jumped on the grim-prediction bandwagon, as when legendary physicist Stephen Hawking fretted in 2014 that the rise of intelligent computers “could spell the end of the human race.” The author compellingly argues that such prognostications are empirically indefensible and presuppose a technological sophistication that AI simply can’t claim. In fact, he says, the notion that machines can have humanlike intelligence conflates AI with artificial general intelligence, or AGI. The former is a reality but restricted to the performance of singular, exceedingly narrow tasks, Shwartz notes, while the latter—the emergence of machine-based consciousness—is an outright fiction. With impressive prudence, he asserts that AGI–based technology is unlikely at best: “How long will it be before we know enough about how people think to make real progress toward AGI? At the current rate of progress, it appears we will need hundreds—maybe thousands—of years, and it may never happen.” Throughout, the author astutely considers the very real challenges that AI poses, such as the potential threat to public safety from autonomous vehicles. At the heart of this searching account, however, is his elucidation of the contrast between human and artificial cognition: The former, he notes, is infinitely more complex and nimble and requires a “commonsense reasoning,” and the latter can only superficially mime it. Despite his subject’s forbidding technicality, Shwartz writes with unwavering clarity in a book that will be accessible to a wide audience.

A thoughtfully cautious appraisal of AI and its promise.