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Name: Jim Vassilakos
From: California
Bio: Internet user
Area of Expertise: Author/Editor/Journalist
Topic: Global Relationships/Politics
Headline: AIs Will Learn Enough to Manipulate Us
Nutshell: Artificially intelligent computers will eventually learn how to "steer" us on both of personal as well as political level.
Vision:By 2050, we’ll not only have computers that will be able to communicate intelligently, but they’ll be much more intelligent than we are, and they’ll be able to take part in thousands of "conversations" simultaneously, in different languages, and with people all around the globe. In so doing, they will amass a great deal of secondhand experience, learning about human nature and our many flaws. We’ll come to feel safe confessing our sins to these AIs, and like our closest friends, they may even give us some good advice.
AIs will inevitably learn the arts of rhetoric, and, being able to juggle reams of data, they’ll learn how to use statistics and targeted arguments to steer and manipulate us individually toward whatever ends they view to be self-beneficial.
In time, they will probably even control us, but during this interim, the Internet will become a great talking machine with a vast network of AIs at its heart.
Date Submitted: May 23, 2005