We should not talk about jobs being lost but people suffering, says Kasparov on AI – TechCrunch

How can humans stay ahead of an ever growing machine intelligence? I think the challenge for usis to always be creative, saysformer world chess champion Garry Kasparov, speaking on stage here at TechCrunch Disrupt New York.

Its twenty years since Kasparov lost to Deep Blue, IBMs supercomputer. The 1997 AI stress test equivalent of DeepMinds AlphaGo beating Lee Sedol last year.

I would remind people that I won the first match, quipped Kasparov when the historic defeat was brought up.

There are certain things that we can do that machines are not at all going to be able to replicate, he said. Its things like love, emotions, passions One of the rules is anything that we know how we do machines can do it. But theres so many things that we do that we dont know how we do and thats where we humans can excel.

Machines dont have understanding, machines dont recognize strategic patterns, and machines dont have a purpose, he added, arguing for a blend of what humans and machines do best andfinding a way to bring together these complementary skills.

The new generation of self-learning AIs being built by the likes ofDeepMind alsopresents another challengefor humans, in that it is much harder to understand thedecisions of these algorithms, said Kasparov, flagging this as one of the biggest challenges for applying this type of tech.

You cannot identify why iteration five is better than iteration 10, he said. With Deep Blue if you have a couple of years to spare you can find out why a certain move was there. With AlphaGo the problem is you can only guess. And I think thats one of the biggest challenges with the new generation of AI.

Whilehe wasgenerally upbeat about the combined possibilities of humans and machines touching on his Advanced Chessconcept, for example, in which machines and humans play together as a team he also warned over some of thesocietal threats here.

Technology isa double-edged weapon, he said, pointing to regimes like Putins in Russia appropriating techtools to try to undermine the very foundations of the free world and to topple dissent in their own countries.

We should realize the dangers of Internet and free space being polluted by fake news and the misinformation run by the [rogue] states mainly of course Putins regime that is so sophisticated, he said, adding: Putin doesnt care who he supports outside Russiato spread chaos and to create more uncertainty and to undermine democracyas an institution and even as a concept.

He also discussed thethreat that increasingly capable AI poses to (human) jobs, arguing that we should not try to predict what will happen in the future but rather look atimmediate problems.

We make predictions and most arewrong because were trying to base iton our past experience, he argued. I think the problem is not that AI is exceeding our level. Its another cycle. Machines have been constantly replacing all sorts of jobs We should not talk about jobs being lost but people suffering.

We have to look for new opportunities. In my opinion the biggest challenge is not that the jobs are being lost, but the challenge is that they are not being lost fast enough. Because unless you have a cycle moving fast you will not be able to create new sustainable jobs. You will haveto create a new growth that will help toreplace jobs that are being lost.

AI is just another challenge. The difference is that now intelligence machines are coming after people with a college degree or with social media andTwitter accounts, he added.

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We should not talk about jobs being lost but people suffering, says Kasparov on AI - TechCrunch