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[RAYK Q&A RAY KURZWEIL ANSWERS QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FUTURE] Hello and welcome to RAYK Q and A, the show where Ray Kurzweil answers questions about the future. [HOW DO WE AVOID A ROBOT APOCALYPSE?] This week's question, how do we avoid a robot apocalypse? You know, the challenge up until recently was, [RAY KURZWEIL Author, Computer Scientist, Inventor and Futurist.] oh, AI is never gonna work, can't even tell the difference between a dog and a cat, now people are saying, "Oh, my God. It's gonna work and could destroy the world." Technology has in fact been a double edged sword ever since fire, you know, which kept us warm and cooked our food, it could also burn down our villages. [Three phases you go through] I talk about in How to Create a Mind three phases you go through [in encountering the potential of these technologies.] in encountering the potential of these technologies. [One is delight at the potential of these technologies] One is delight at the potential of these technologies [to overcome age-old problems, like overcoming disease and poverty.] to overcome age-old problems, like overcoming disease and poverty and so on, then alarm, that, oh, my God, this could go awry as you point out and there's lots of Times features and movies that portray that dramatically. [Finally, I think you come out, at least I came out,] Finally, I think you come out, at least I came out, [to a cautiously optimistic perspective.] to a cautiously optimistic perspective. And we need to give a high priority in how to keep these technologies safe. We have one good example of success. Thirty years ago, it was recognized that biotechnology would ultimately overcome disease and so on, but could also destroy humanity and that you could create a new life, some new virus that's highly replicable, deadly, and stealthy. So they had a conference called the Asilomar Conference. They came up with guidelines called the Asilomar Guidelines on how to keep this technology safe, both to avoid accidental problems and intentional problems. And so far it has worked well. We're now beginning to get the clinical benefit of biotechnology and the number of problems either accidental or intentional so far has been zero. Now that doesn't mean we can cross it off our concern list, because the technology continuous to get more and more powerful and there's more and more scenarios for how it could be abused. But it does give us a good model or template for how to deal with these new existential risks. And I've been very involved in this discussion about the promise versus danger, particularly the danger of AI and a similar approach will work and there are various guidelines to how to, you know, carefully define the mission of a program, and built-in safeguards to prevent it from being hijacked to some other purpose. It's not a foolproof approach. I think we can take comfort from how well it has gone in these exponential technologies so far. But I would say, it's the primary issue in humanity, you know, we have all these raging debate, you know, here in United States about various issues in the political arena with it being a presidential election year and the most important issues are not discussed at all. The most important issue is how do we reap the promise while controlling the deprival. [RAYK Q & A] Thanks for watching RAYK Q and A. Stay tuned for a new episode every Thursday. [SINGULARITY UNIVERSITY SUBSCRIBE] Click here for more videos from Singularity University. Also, don't forget to subscribe.