The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation is an American think tank. It focuses on policies that promote technology innovation and has chosen Hawking Gates, Musk, and Bill Gates to be the nominees. Ironically, but also strangely, it seems that an influential theoretical physicist and founder of Microsoft Corporation, as well as the world’s wealthiest person and founder of a rocket firm and electric car company – all of whom are not technophobes, have been named the Luddite of the Year 2015. The 19th century skilled textile workers were the Luddites. They were British protesters against the labour-saving tools that came on the market with the industrial revolution. This cartoon may remind you of Bill Gates, Elon Musk or Stephen Hawking. Luddites were scared of losing their jobs and being replaced with low-paid workers or machines. It grew in Northwestern England and became so vicious that the government had to send the army to stop it. Today the word ‘Luddite” refers to a person with small minds who prefers things as they are, and doesn’t like, or even despises, new devices, machines and scientific advancements. Oxford Dictionaries defines a Luddite as: “An individual opposed to increasing industrialization or new tech, e.g. “A small-minded Luddite who resists progress,” according to Oxford Dictionaries. So the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation views Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates as technophobes that hate new technology. Hawking expressed concerns about artificial intelligence. He said that “the development of full AI could spell the death of the human race”. Professor Hawking said that human beings who have been limited by biological evolution can’t be competitive and will soon be obsolete. The biological evolution of humans is slow, taking hundreds of thousands of year. Artificial intelligence (AI) will continue to improve at an even faster pace than human evolution. Professor Hawking speculates on what could happen when AI becomes more intelligent than we. Elon Musk stated in 2014, during an interview at the AeroAstro Centennial Symposium held at MIT that artificial intelligence is something that should not be taken lightly. It’s likely that this is our greatest existential threat. We need to exercise extreme caution. It is becoming more common for me to believe that regulation should be established at both the national and international levels to ensure that no one does anything very stupid.” Bill Gates stated that he was in the “camp that cares about superintelligence.” The machines can do many jobs and will not have super intelligence. If we do it right, that should be good news.” “A few more decades later though, the intelligence will be strong enough to cause concern. Elon Musk, and others like him on this issue agree. I don’t get why people aren’t concerned. Elon Musk thinks AI should be controlled by government agencies or an international organization. If you are concerned, would you consider yourself a Luddite? According to the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, Musk, Gates, and Hawking are potential Luddites. They have voiced concern about AI’s future control, and warned that this could lead to an existential threat. ITIF reports that there have been paranoias about the existence of evil machines for two centuries. This is due to the fact that many blockbuster films, such as Ex Machina and Terminator: Genisys last year, depict high-tech technology as a danger. Bill Gates worries about what the future holds for AI in just a few years. This is why he cannot comprehend the reason that some people don’t care about it. ITIF awards the Luddite of the year award to those who oppose technological and scientific advances. ITIF is serious? Does it really view the world’s most famous astrophysicist, one of the major contributors to computer technology worldwide, and a pioneering rocket and battery-car inventor/businessman, as people bent on stopping progress? While the 19th-century Luddites used clubs and sledgehammers to their advantage, Neo-Luddites claim they have an even more potent weapon – “bad ideas”. They work to convince policymakers that innovation is not the answer to our greatest social and economic problems. The Neo-Luddites, ITIF claims, have a much more powerful weapon – ‘bad ideas. They seek to create a world where there is little risk and innovation. ITIF does not believe AI is a threat in this century. It is unsure if AI will be able to fully autonomous within the next 10 years. If it does it will likely take 100 years or longer. American futurist Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist and popularizer of scientific ideas. He was Professor of Theoryal Physics at City College of New York. The first is that no one will accidentally create a robot who wants to be the ruler of the universe. This is similar to someone building an 747 plane by accident. There will be ample time to prevent this happening. The Foundation states that before someone creates a super-bad robot, they must first build a “mildly evil robot” and then a “not so bad robot.” However, it is too early to worry about scenarios like Skynet with AI-awareness. ITIF questions how policymakers, scientists, and the public can support AI research funding if they’re being bombarded by scary sci-fi scenarios. The Foundation states that a sustained anti-AI campaign is the death knell for AI research and development and for responsible ways of controlling it. ITIF stated that “What legislator would like to be called the godfather of technology that has destroyed the human race?”
