AI may begin war, increase nuclear arsenal, warns ex-Google engineer Blake Lemoine

Ex-Google engineer and AI pioneer Blake Lemoine has warned that Artificial Intelligence may start a war and it could be used in assassination. He is the software engineer who was sacked by the company after he claimed that Google's LaMDA system was capable of having feelings. Google rejected this and fired the software engineer. He has expressed apprehension that the tools other AI makers are creating may be used wrongfully in warfare.

Talking to 'The Washington Times', he said, "Using the AI to solve political problems by sending a bullet into the opposition will become seductive, especially if it’s accurate." He also said, "If you can kill one revolutionary thought leader and prevent a civil war while your hands are clean, you prevented a war. But that leads to ‘Minority Report’ and we don’t want to live in that world."

AI may increase the nuclear threat

Lemoine compared the race for AI tools to nuclear weapons. He argues that Artificial Intelligence enables machines to perform tasks through advanced calculations and statistical analysis that were previously only possible for humans.


He said the apparent shortage of well-protected nuclear weapons and the scarce resources of plutonium and uranium are limitations that do not exist for open-source software models because these do not depend on rare natural resources.

MIMIO.ai

Blake Lemoine is not working on a new project, called MIMIO.ai.
He oversees the technology and AI for the company and is building a 'personality engine' that allows people to create digital personas.

The 'personality engine' is intended to function not as a digital twin of a person, but as a digital extension of a person, capable of doing things on their behalf. AI will be designed to complete tasks and interact with humans as if they were humans themselves.

'Personality engine'

Lemoine said that China already has similar tools and MIMIO.ai will stay away from the Chinese market.

He said, "I think there are a handful of developers at Google who did things differently than they otherwise would have done because they listened to me." The AI pioneer said, "I don’t think they necessarily share all of my beliefs or all of my opinions, but when they had the choice to do it one way or the other, and that both were equally difficult, I think they chose the more compassionate option decidedly a tiebreaker."

FAQs:

What Blake Lemoine has said about the use of AI in nuclear weapons?
Blake Lemoine has said that the apparent shortage of well-protected nuclear weapons and the scarce resources of plutonium and uranium are limitations that do not exist for open-source software models because these do not depend on rare natural resources.

What is a personality engine?
The 'personality engine' is an Artificial Intelligence tool that may function not as a digital extension of a person, capable of doing things on their behalf. AI will be designed to complete tasks and interact with humans as if they were humans themselves.