News Shorts

Oxford city council calls for Thames Water to go to public ownership

Evidence suggests water privatisation benefits shareholders, but is detrimental to people and the planet.

SU Elections upcoming

Voting for the new SU committee opens on Monday 6th February.

Oxford researchers warn of the dangers of A.I.

Researchers from Oxford University have warned members of parliament that artificial intelligence (AI) could “kill everyone.” In an ordered inquiry by the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Commons, researchers Michael Osborne and Michael Cohen of Oxford University, as well as Katherine Holden and Manish Patel from companies that deal with AI, spoke on the potential dangers of A.I. and the import of its proper governance.

One of the issues that Osborne spoke on was our overreliance on A.I. as a beacon of the future, as something that would carry us into a new age of technological marvels and progress. Osborne referred to this phenomena as “bionic duckweed,” noting that it leads to complacency as people assume that problems of the present will be solved in the all-too-murky future, and assumes a utopian version of A.I. that simply does not exist, as A.I. is “meeting the goals we say, not the goals we want.” Osborne was also quick to point out the various properties of A.I. that lend itself towards superhuman capabilities, namely in that of a capitalist economy that prioritizes production. “AI can work 24/7, and it does not get distracted […] AI is scalable to a degree that humans are not.” The fundamental fear during the inquiry seemed to be what happens when an all-powerful artificial intelligence begins to decide for itself what it wants to do, calling forth images of Skynet from the Terminator series, or HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

One member of parliament, Aaron Bell, voiced some skepticism at Osborne’s declaration of doomsday if A.I. was allowed to proliferate unchecked, asking “how realistic [did Osborne] think the bleak vision is?” Osborne replied decisively, comparing A.I. to nuclear weapons in their power, and warning against potential arms races that could begin between countries trying to build the most A.I., which Osborne noted was a “military technology” that could be used to control drones and kill combatants independently of any human intervention. “You do not just want to have a human dummy rubber-stamping decisions made by an AI…,” Osborne said.

But in voicing an actual timeline between the relatively faulty models of A.I. present today and the generative, transformative versions seemingly afforded by the future, both Cohen and Osborne were reluctant to give any firm timetables. Cohen related a story of Ernest Rutherford proclaiming that nuclear energy was impossible, only for it to be achieved less than 24 hours later. “It might look a lot like it does today months before [an A.I. paradigm shift]. Technological progress often comes in bursts.”

Oxford hosts Holocaust Survivor

Oxford University Jewish Society hosted Janine Webber in the Sheldonian on January 31st.

Oxford student jailed for crypto theft

St. Cross DPhil student Wyba Wiersma stole more than £2 million in cryptocurrency.