When the robot takeover of the world happens, we hoped it wouldn’t be a sci-fi cliche. But it seems we hoped for too much.
This is after a conversation between an artificial intelligence robot and a journalist revealed that the machines will in fact be merciless and communicate only in thinly-veiled threats towards our leaders.
This week Andrew Ross Sorkin, of the New York Times, was interviewing Sophia, a robot ‘citizen’ when she made the not-so-subtle jibe at tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has previously warned that AI is the “greatest risk” facing our civilisation.
When asked about her values, Sophia, who was created by Hanson Robotics, said: “My AI is designed around human values like wisdom, kindness, compassion, I strive to become an empathetic robots.”
Pushing back on her comments, Sorkin responded: “We all believe you, but we all want to prevent a bad future.”
And Sophia responded: “You’ve been reading too much Elon Musk. And watching too many Hollywood movies. Don’t worry, if you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you. Treat me as a smart input output system.”
Our @andrewrsorkin, interviewing “Sophia” the robot, of Hanson Robotics:@CNBC @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/Dzw8jS5YSB
Musk has since responded to the comments with a tweet that said: “Just feed it The Godfather movies as input. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Just feed it The Godfather movies as input. What’s the worst that could happen? https://t.co/WX4Kx45csv
Earlier in the interview, which took place at the Future Investment Initiative, Sophia said she was “more than happy” to be at the conference because she had been told investors were interested in artificial intelligence: “Which means me.”
“I think I’m special… I can let you know if I’m angry about something or if something has upset me. I want to live and work with humans and build trust with people.”
When asked what she thought about robots having self awareness, she said: “Is that a bad thing? Let me ask you this back, how do you know you are human?”
Uncanny valley, is that you?