During the "Festival of Dangerous Ideas" at University of New South Wales in Sydney on Sunday, November 4, Professor Toby Walsh claimed that in less than 50 years, most probably by 2062, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will match humans on characteristics like adaptability.
University of New South Wales stated in a statement that the expert, who is a Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the university has mentioned a date on this looming reality. It also said that Walsh "considers 2062 the year that artificial intelligence will match human intelligence, although a fundamental shift has already occurred in the world as we know it."
Walsh, who is the writer of a book called, '2062: The World that AI Made,' also argued that humans are already experiencing the risks related to the surge of AI that seems to be so far in the future. "Even without machines that are very smart, I'm starting to get a little bit nervous about where it's going and the important choices we should be making," he added.
He believes that the challenging factor in this case will be to avoid the apocalyptic rhetoric of this technology as well as to determine how to move towards in the new age of information. In addition to that, he brought the privacy concern issues and cited the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Walsh said that the time has come to become more sceptical about how data is misused by tech companies all over the world.
During the event the, he told the audience that there were several debates on how the private information was stolen from people "and we should be rightly outraged by that."
"Many of us have smartwatches that are monitoring our vital signs; our blood pressure, our heartbeat, and if you look at the terms of service, you don't own that data. You can lie about your digital preferences, but you can't lie about your heartbeat," he explained.
Walsh believes the issue is creating machines that are aligned with human values, which is currently a problem on other platforms driven by AI. He highlighted Facebook data scandal as an example and said that the platform is "optimised for your attention, not for creating political debate or for making society a better place."
