Anthropomorphising AI Is an Impediment to a Stable Society

August 6, 2018
Joanna Bryson | University of Bath

Computation, unlike mathematics, is a physical process that takes time, energy, and space. Humans have dominated this planet’s ecosystem by learning to share and consolidate the outcome of their computation in an unprecedented way. Now we have augmented this processing with artificial intelligence (AI) and other information communications technology (ICT). The impact on our society is so spectacular that our institutions are struggling to keep pace, including the social sciences that might help us understand the promises and risks of our new situation. In this talk I will describe the theoretical biology of increasing communication between intelligent agents, and suggest changes to our individual, collective, political, and economic behaviour that might be consequences of the increasing presence of AI in our lives. Anthropomorphising – that is, over identifying with, and / or facilitating such overidentification – in most cases only exacerbates the complexity of forming coherent policy around these consequences. I will close with a series of policy recommendations concerning governance of and legal status for intelligent ICT, economic redistribution, individual and collective security, and intellectual diversity.

Speaker Details

Joanna J. Bryson is a transdisciplinary researcher on the structure and dynamics of human- and animal-like intelligence. Her research covering topics from artificial intelligence, through autonomy and robot ethics, and on to human cooperation has appeared in venues ranging from a reddit to Science. She holds degrees in Psychology from Chicago and Edinburgh, and Artificial Intelligence from Edinburgh and MIT. She has additional professional research experience from Princeton, Oxford, Harvard, and LEGO, and technical experience in Chicago’s financial industry, and international management consultancy. Bryson is presently a Reader (associate professor) at the University of Bath.