Humanity has just five years before the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution threatens to cull our jobs, a top boffin has warned. The horrifying news left BBC presenter Rick Edwards shaken
The development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) could soon completely change how humans work, a top boffin has warned. Professor Yu Xiong of the University of Surrey warned that the cull of jobs could strike in just five years.
The machine learning expert told the BBC’s Rick Edwards that the UK is not prepared for what lays just beyond the horizon. “In five years time many people may just not have jobs,” he said.
“Their jobs may just not exist. Maybe we should revalue. And instead of working for someone maybe we should work for our self.
“The Government should prepare people for what is coming in the next five or 10 years. The whole world will be changed.”
But presenter Edwards was stunned and responded: “But money has to come into this. Doing stuff for yourself is all well and good but if you’re not getting paid by anyone then how can anyone sustain their life?
“Is there an alternative to this or is the AI genie too far out of the bottle? Is it possible for people to say they don’t want AI to do everything in the world for us?”
The shaken BBC presenter added: “It’s quite terrifying. AI will be able to do things, quicker and more cheaply than people.
“I don’t see how the owners of the AI technology would not take that forward. And I don’t understand how the economy will function at that point.”
Earlier this week, another expert warned the world ‘may not have time’ to protect humanity from Terminator-style AI systems taking over the world. David Dalrymple, a leading figure at the Government’s scientific research agency, said people should be worried about the growing capability of the technology.
Bots will be able to perform ‘all the functions that humans’ can ‘but better’, he said. Mankind will be ‘outcompeted’ in every domain needed to ‘maintain control of our civilisation, society and planet’.
Dalrymple, a programme director and AI safety expert at the Aria agency, reckons the Terminator-style takeover will happen within five years.
He said: “I think we should be concerned about systems that can perform all of the functions that humans perform to get things done in the world but better.
“Because we will be outcompeted in all of the domains that we need to be dominant in, in order to maintain control of our civilisation, society and planet.”
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