Judy Woodruff Quotes

We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes.

At times, we forget the magnitude of the havoc we can wreak by off-loading our minds onto super-intelligent machines, that is, until they run away from us, like mad sorcerers' apprentices, and drag us up to the precipice for a look down into the abyss.

The present danger which this country faces is at least as great as the danger which we faced during the war with Germany and Japan. Briefly stated, it is the very real danger that this country, as we know it, may cease to exist.

We are still fearful, superstitious and all-too-human creatures. At times, we forget the magnitude of the havoc we can wreak by off-loading our minds onto super-intelligent machines, that is, until they run away from us, like mad sorcerers' apprentices, and drag us up to the precipice for a look down into the abyss.

AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there'll be great companies.

If we ever find out how the brain works, with all its complexity, then we will be able to build a machine that has consciousness. And if that happens, that is a road to planetary disaster because everything we've thought about ourselves, since the Bronze Age, the Bible, all of that will be gone.

For the moment, machines able to 'think' in anything approaching a human sense remain science-fiction. How we should prepare for their potential emergence, however, is a deeply unsettling question - not least because intelligent machines seem considerably more achievable than any consensus around their programming or consequences.

I absolutely don't think a sentient artificial intelligence is going to wage war against the human species.

I do not regard the atomic bomb as a new weapon merely, but as a revolutionary change in the relations of man in the universe.

The creature has been exalted above its creators

In the past, scientists could disclaim direct responsibility for the use to which mankind had put their disinterested discoveries. We cannot take the same attitude now because the success which we have achieved in the development of nuclear power is fraught with infinitely greater dangers than were all the inventions of the past.

Man has mounted science, and is now run away with. I firmly believe that before many centuries more, science will be the master of men. The engines he will have invented will be beyond his strength to control. Someday science may have the existence of mankind in its power, and the human race commit suicide, by blowing up the world.

Russia is the biggest menace in the world led by the most menacing guy in the world.

Artificial Intelligence is one of those areas where we should be proactive in controlling it rather than reactive. If we are reactive, by the time we will do the necessary things, it will be too late. Robots can do everything better than we [humans] can.

With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. In all those stories where there is the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, … he’s sure he can control the demon. But it doesn’t work out.

I think that the development of artificial intelligence could lead to the end of the human race.

Every technology that can improve the human condition could harm the human condition. Someone evil could program a robot to hurt people.

Autonomous weapons are the worst possiblity for an Aitificial Intelligence application. I don't even want a single gun to be automomous.... We should ahve laws against autonomous weapons. One of the major problems with autonomous weapons is that they become the enemy's arsenal when the software is hacked and that always happens sooner or later.

I would much rather we concentrated on the immediate, still-potent dangers, such as nuclear weapons, runaway climate change, and so on. Sort those out, then worry about Hal 9000.

Once we no longer have the intellectual upper hand, then we quite literally, by definition, cannot outwit our successors. So unless we are absolutely sure that the machines we are building right now are not going to eventually become our new robot overlords, prudence is called for.

Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, and others have stated that they think AI is an existential risk. I disagree. I don't see a risk to humanity of a 'Terminator' scenario or anything of the sort.

It's much more likely that an asteroid will strike the Earth and annihilate life as we know it than AI will turn evil.

I'm not so worried about super-intelligence and 'Terminator' scenarios. Frankly I think those are quite farfetched.

The real problem is not the existential threat of AI. Instead, it is in the development of ethical AI systems.

As we get robots becoming more sophisticated, I think we should worry sooner rather than later on how much they could take over, but I think it'll mostly be a positive thing. In terms of deadlines it won't be any worse than nuclear weapons.