This BBC article is sort of a follow up about Hawkings statements of paranoia about AI machines from Eric Horvits, a Microsoft Research chief (his group made Cortana).
Quote:
"There have been concerns about the long-term prospect that we lose control of certain kinds of intelligences," he said.
"I fundamentally don't think that's going to happen.
"I think that we will be very proactive in terms of how we field AI systems, and that in the end we'll be able to get incredible benefits from machine intelligence in all realms of life, from science to education to economics to daily life."
I'd say Horvitz's life work makes him not so objective on the subject.
Others:
Elon Musk wrote:
AI poses the greatest "existential threat" humankind faces. "With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon," he told an audience of students in October.
"In all those stories where there's the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, it's like yeah he's sure he can control the demon. Didn't work out."
...and Spectrum Computer Creator
Sir Clive Sinclair wrote:
"Once you start to make machines that are rivalling and surpassing humans with intelligence, it's going to be very difficult for us to survive," he told the BBC. "It's just an inevitability."
I don't think demonic attributes lend themselves to machines, even intelligent ones as Elon suggests.
I guess I'm of the mind that AI could just as easily save man-kind as destroy it.
Edited, Jan 29th 2015 2:16pm by Elinda