Gary Marcus on the Future of Artificial Intelligence and the Brain

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4.7 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2014

⏱️ 58 minutes

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Summary

Gary Marcus of New York University talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the future of artificial intelligence (AI). While Marcus is concerned about how advances in AI might hurt human flourishing, he argues that truly transformative smart machines are still a long way away and that to date, the exponential improvements in technology have been in hardware, not software. Marcus proposes ways to raise standards in programming to reduce mistakes that would have catastrophic effects if advanced AI does come to fruition. The two also discuss "big data's" emphasis on correlations, and how that leaves much to be desired.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:06.4	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:11.0	Our website is econtalk.org, where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find
0:16.0	links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:19.0	You'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done
0:23.1	going back to 2006.
0:25.4	Our email address is maladycontalk.org.
0:27.9	We'd love to hear from you.
0:32.0	Today is December 8, 2014, and my guest is Gary Marcus, professor of psychology at New
0:37.7	York University.
0:39.4	He has written widely on the brain.
0:41.2	His latest book is Guitar Zero, the science of becoming musical at any age.
0:46.6	We're going to talk about human intelligence, artificial intelligence, building on recent
0:50.9	talk, an article on the subject that he has done, whether we should be worried about
0:55.5	artificial intelligence running amuck, Gary, welcome to econ talk.
0:59.2	Thank you very much.
1:00.2	I should mention, by the way, that I actually have a more recent book that's very relevant,
1:03.4	which is called The Future of the Brain, essays by the world leading neuroscientists, maybe
1:07.5	we'll touch on that.
1:08.5	Excellent.
1:09.5	We'll put a link up to it.
1:10.5	Now, there have been a lot of really smart folks raising the alarm about artificial intelligence
	...

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