Do you Trust This Computer?

We’re living in a 2018 with everyone being a fan of Technology.

Most of us are almost unaware of the amount of Digital Interactions we have with our world today.

Doyoutrustthiscomputer is an amazing movie by Chris Paine which takes a critical stance in reminding us that ‘AI’ is not a scientific fantasy anymore. Infact, some extent of it is already here. It serves a gentle reminder to think and re-think about AI- regulations, controlling and what happens if we’re not careful with the things that we don’t understand.

If you Follow Elon Musk, you probably would have already watched the movie by now. If you haven’t, go check it out at doyoutrustthiscomputer.org

Here are my views from the movie.

Past, Present, Future

Past

The movie starts with wicked cool references to ‘AI Sci Fi’ from the 90’s.

Next it discusses the amazing breakthroughs we’ve achieved with Technology.

It is astonishing that what we even as creative writers and directors imagined would be ‘Sci-Fi’ is now a common reality.

Present

We’re hand in hand with Technology. I’m a college student, and it’s pretty normal to own a cellphone, a Laptop maybe a smartwatch, a tablet?

Today, we’re generating data at a speed that was un imaginable a few years ago.

Facebook itself has 2B users. College students practically live on Instagram. You can follow almost any person on earth on Twitter without even knowing them personally.

Various startups and research in the Domain are mentioned.

Future

You’re warned about the possible negative impacts of ‘AI’.

Viewpoints from the greatest cutting edge researchers, Entrepreneurs, Practitioners are presented.

We’ve Boston Robotics robot that are capable of doing mechanical movements like humans.

Affectiva is capable of detecting human emotions from our facial expressions.

Self Driving Cars are here.

DeepMind is beating Humans at games we thought it would take atleast a 100 years to beat us at.

The Warning

Throughout the movie, even the animations of the movie itself are have a dark atmosphere.

We’re constantly reminded what might happen if things go wrong?

Technology is moving at an unstoppable rate, which is unavoidable.

The Example of Aircrafts is given: The Wright brothers conducted their first flight in early 1900s- a few years later we have commercial Airplanes.

Now our concern isn’t flying-it’s if we’d get the aisle or window seat.

Flying Cars are about to become common too!

We know that nations are working on Autonomous weapons.

The questions asked are very fundamental:What happens when if AI isn’t de-centralized?Unlike a dictator that can be removed or assassinated, AI will be immortal.

What happens when our data is used against us?

Even currently, the researchers don’t understand every bit of the AI systems that they build.

How do we control a thing that is more powerful, bigger than us, smarter than us?

AI is code. It has no emotions. It has a goal that is needs to achieve. What happens if we’re in it’s path of the goal?

“The idea isn’t to stop the Killer robots on Street, it’s to prevent them from happening. If they’re here, it’s already too late. ”- Elon Musk.

If you found this article interesting and would like to stay in touch, you can find me on Twitter here.

Do you Trust This Computer? was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.