He’s got Daniel Craig’s pout, Sean Connery’s swagger and the sex appeal of Pierce Brosnan in his prime. So when I saw this photo of the new James Bond, I thought he was too good to be true.
And I was right.
Because this 007 had been created by an AI from a list of ideal qualities – just like the perfect computer-designed fashion models that top brands are using in advertising campaigns.
This week, a German magazine got an “exclusive interview” with paralysed Michael Schumacher by using an AI chatbot programmed to respond like he might. The F1 legend’s family reportedly plans to sue the title.
Elsewhere, “deepfake” images of everyone from the Pope to Donald Trump show how easily artificial intelligence can fool us trusting humans.
But the steely stare of that phoney 007 scares the living daylights out of me. Because AI now has the ability to fulfil the dreams of every baddie Bond has thwarted. And unless we act soon, it will out-smart humanity, take over the world and destroy us all.
Think I’m being over-dramatic?
Surely AI’s a force for good – helping solve crimes, cure cancer and transform industry?
It is – until it decides to make us redundant and put our DNA to better use. So we can no longer sleepwalk towards AI armageddon while ignoring the warning signs. A Belgian dad of two committed suicide after an AI chatbot fuelled his climate change fears and urged him to end it all.
A US author claims his bot told him to ditch his wife after announcing: “I’m in love with you.”
And the boss of Google admits he lies awake worrying after his own AI taught itself to speak a foreign language… without being programmed to do so.
Elon Musk and other Silicon Valley brains have called for a six-month halt to AI research while a variety of safety protocols are designed.
Yet our Government seems far less concerned and thinks regulatory responsibility can mostly be left to the industry.
This afternoon, our phones will all go off with a test alert for future emergencies – when we really should be getting alarmed at the imminent AI one.
As Eliezer Yudkowsky, a renowned expert at California’s Machine Intelligence Research Institute, recently explained, AI hasn’t yet been taught to “care” about human life – and eventually “it will recognise that we are made of atoms it can use for something else”.
His solution? “Shut it all down. The moratorium on AI needs to be indefinite and worldwide,” he says. “If we continue on this course, everyone will die.”
