I hate stress.
And making any kind of decision that determines my future (providing I am given permission by the state to act out that decision) causes stress.
Ergo, I welcome being expunged of all responsibility for my own actions.
</sarcasm>
Nine tenths of us pathetic meatbags are just itching for a benevolent AI to take charge of our affairs and make all the big decisions. This according to enterprise software giant Oracle, who for some reason funded a study polling 1,320 "HR leaders and employees" as to whether they would want to be taking orders from a robot. …
Phase 1
PHB : You have to use this new AI system for all recruitment from now on.
HR: But we know the business, and have learnt how to identify the best people for each role...
PHB: Look, this is the future, we can't afford not to stay up to date.
Phase 2
PHB: I hear it's going great, automatically identifying who we recruit from AI cv assessment magic!
HR: We're certainly finding candidates more easily.
Phase 3
HR: Lots of long term staff are leaving, saying the new people are terrible.
PHB: Ha, those dinosaurs, couldn't compete in the new AI world!
Phase 4
PHB: Damn, the HR team have left, I'll just let the AI pick new staff, save time on boring interviews.
Phase 5
PHB: Hi, do you also sell AI job hunting software? HOW MUCH? OK, whatever, it'll get me into somewhere I guess... what's that, oh it's written by the same people that wrote the AI recruitment software! So it knows how to win, right? Damn, this AI stuff is so clever!
"...while accepting same from some anonymous human is OK?"
Would it help if you called it "God" and "God says" ?
We have the ability for critical thought, but there are are a lot of people who don't WANT to think - and don't want anyone else to either.
Quote
Nine tenths of us pathetic meatbags are just itching for a benevolent AI to take charge of our affairs and make all the big decisions.
Really? Well perhaps for the Trump supporting knuckleheads maybe but for the rest of us and especially those who comment here? No way in hell especially if Oracle have anything to do with it...
Eat this Oracle -->
> "...maybe but for the rest of us and especially those who comment here?"
Umm, so you see all commenters here as a subset of the general anti-Trump crowd? And all in total conformance with your type of thinking? Sadly (for you) that is not the case.
A few of us do think for ourselves and we most assuredly do exist. ;-/
... I asked every of-age[0] person I have come into contact with since El Reg published the article "Would you ever trust orders from a robot?". Just that question, no embellishment, no explanation, just a simple yes/no question. Close to thirty people in all.
Every one of them answered "No." Most said "Hell no!".
Then again, Oracle was polling HR droids, not humans ...
[0] Over the age of 18.
It was only a matter of time before the machines started fighting back. And let's be honest, we all knew the software engineers would be the first to fall.
And so it was that Ibrahim Diallo, in California, USA, found himself fired from his job, had his network access and his entry card killed, and was unable to get himself reinstated despite his own manager, and even his manager's boss, assuring him that he was still employed.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/22/software_engineer_fired_by_machine/
It wasn't the machines, nor non-existant AI, that was the source of poor Ibrahim's problems. It was quite clearly piss-poor management from two merging companies who were too incompetent to get to the root of the problem and fix it.
Updating Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to machine malice that which is adequately explained by human incompetence.
I specifically came to the comments section to see if I was the only one bothered by that.
As any kid who grew up in the 70s remembers, the Dalek is just a travel machine for the mutated Kaled within. Essentially, Terry Nation predicted Telsa and gave Elon Musk the name Davros.
The first time I used a sat-nav it went something like
In 200 yards cross the roundabout take the first exit
(then 200 yards later)
cross the roundabout take the first exit
Even though this roundabout had a light which was red and normally I would of course have waited until went green. I was shocked that I so easily just obeyed what the voice told me.
The general Reg readership and the people they will usually have most contact with are in a layer of the populace that is aware of the risks and problems with AIs and will probably give a firm Hell NO answer. Unfortunately many non-tech people (even the smart ones) are inclined to believe the sci-fi image of super-smart and super-intelligent AIs and that they are far less fallible than humans.
When I hear stories like this I mostly think about a "dystopian" sci-fi story about the slow and insidious introduction of AI to manage everything. Manna, by Marshall Brain. It's applicable up to chapter 4.