Billionaires Band Together To Protect The World From Evil AI

An artificial intelligence that gains consciousness and starts thinking that the world would be better off without humans as the dominant species is one of the greatest fears that permeates the public consciousness right now. However, a future where AIs are a significant part of society is coming. This is a fact that some billionaires have come to accept, which is why some of them are forming an alliance to make sure that the machine overlords don’t rise up.

The list of people on board includes Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn and Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, The Guardian reports. According to Hoffman, this move is necessary in order to reassure humanity that the robot apocalypse is not going to happen.

“There’s an urgency to ensure that AI benefits society and minimizes harm,” Hoffman said. “AI decision-making can influence many aspects of our world – education, transportation, healthcare, criminal justice and the economy – yet data and code behind those decisions can be largely invisible.”

The billionaires are also working with the Knight Foundation and the goal is basically the creation of AIs that will have an actual moral compass, Futurism reports. Many have considered it, but the best that anyone could likely hope for at the moment is to encode instructions into the algorithm that would limit the things that the AI will be able to do.

So far, the alliance has been able to generate $27 million, with the billionaire duo committing $10 million each. The rest were provided by the foundation and several other donors William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

For some time now, scientists have been submitting reports to governments with regards to the dangers of an AI that goes out of control, but so far, the response has been negligible. At least, with this move by private individuals, the world might not be blindsided.