Stephen Hawking on the dangers of advanced AI

You have touched on two of my pet peeves as well: (1) when the messenger is more important than the message, and (2) when arrogance breeds the offering of opinions without appropriate pause for reflection. However, these seem so eminently human traits, they seem hard to criticize in an absolute sense. My latest approach to these things is just to ignore the bias implicit in listening to others based on perceived eminence and concentrate on their content or message. I suppose in the present context that means trying to say something sensible about the future of artificial intelligence or our fear of losing control over the AI we create... mmm...

I guess I would say we need to consider what purposes intelligences, whether natural or artifical, serve because -- presumably -- intelligence will evolve to support these purposes. And, there isn't enough conversation in society at all levels about the reasons for our moral (or purposeful) choices. Thus, I suppose I could be almost as afraid of the very rich and powerful making decisions which adversely affect my personhood as I am of any future artifical intelligence. Maybe this could change if we could demonstrate how choices for shared good outperform choices for personal good? Maybe an AI superior to our own natural intelligence could help us discover this?