Cade Metz and Karen Weise in the New York Times:
As the tech industry spends and spends, turning farmland into data centers and A.I. researchers into some of the most highly paid workers in the country, it has struggled to explain what it is building and why it is spending so much money.
Are they building an A.I. system as smart as humans? A godlike machine that will change the world if it doesn’t destroy humanity first? Are they working on fancier versions of software they have been selling for decades? Is all this money going into a bold plan to create fake online friends and more effective ads? Or are they just afraid of missing out on what everyone else is doing?
Here is a rundown of the visions, from the very plausible to the fantastical and why they’re pursuing those ideas.
More here.
Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.