Do you fear Artificial Intelligence?

you’ll need all your wits about you = you will have to think very quickly

He was known for great wit at a young age.

to be ready to think quickly in a situation and react to things that you are not expecting: Cycling is potentially very dangerous in the city - you have to keep your wits about you.

She was gone before he could find any part of his wits.

threat = something which can put us in danger

He doesn't pose a threat to me. I won't tolerate him making threats to me

He doesn't pose a threat to me

to surpass = to have superior abilities

This product was of superior quality

In fact, he surpassed what we asked him to do.

in pursuit of their goals = trying to meet their objectives

the act of trying to achieve a plan, activity, or situation, usually over a long period of time.

the pursuit of happiness The company is ruthless in its pursuit of profit. in pursuit of (= trying to achieve) a ten percent pay increase.

The company is ruthless in its pursuit of profit.

He attempted to remain polite.

On usiłował pozostać grzecznym.

moral compass a natural perception people have about what is right and what is wrong

He has a good moral compass, which is important to the country. People had lost their moral compass.

Well, you’ll need all your wits about you – meaning you’ll need to think very quickly in this programme because we’re talking about intelligence, or to be more accurate, Artificial Intelligence

people remember him for his brilliance and also because he communicates using a synthetic voice generated by a computer – synthetic means it’s made from something non-natural.

Artificial is similar in meaning

Professor Hawking has said recently that efforts to create thinking machines are a threat to our existence. A threat means something which can put us in danger.

Some of these very clever robots are already surpassing us. To surpass means to have abilities superior to our own.

Some of these very clever robots are already surpassing us. To surpass means to have abilities superior to our own.

It was an embarrassing defeat. Nobody anticipated defeat

To była żenująca porażka

Nobody anticipated defeat.

Nikt nie spodziewał się klęski.

We were defeated in this battle. The last question defeated me

Maybe you can remember the headlines when a supercomputer defeated the World Chess Champion Gary Kasparov, to everybody’s astonishment.

Menace = threat. Drunk drivers are a menace to everyone. Dogs running loose are a public menace. the menace of industrial pollution

In many movies and books about robots that think, the robots end up rebelling against their creators.

The bulk of the risk is not in machines being evil or hating humans but rather that they are indifferent to humans and that in pursuit of their own goals we humans would suffer as a side effect.

they are indifferent to humans

But some experts say the risk posed by Artificial Intelligence is not that computers attack us because they hate us

Suppose you had a super intelligent AI whose only goal was to make as many paperclips as possible.

The bulk of the risk is not in machines being evil or hating humans but rather that they are indifferent to humans and that in pursuit of their own goals we humans would suffer as a side effect.

‘meet their objectives’ is to ‘pursue their goals

So the academic explains that if you’re a computer responsible for producing paperclips, you will pursue your objective at any cost

How can we be sure that Artificial Intelligence – be it either a device or software – will have a moral compass?