No 'Westworld' Can Contain the Real Rise of AI

A train carries human visitors to the futuristic amusement park of "Westworld" populated by robot hosts. Credit: HBO Nobody would accuse the HBO show "Westworld" of being a sunny science fiction tale about artificial intelligence. The show features humanlike robot "hosts" who live, die, and live again to serve the fantasies of human guests visiting a Western-themed amusement park. But the dark premise of "Westworld" is still escapist fiction compared with real concerns surrounding the rise of artificial intelligence. The lurking threat of a "Westworld" robot uprising begins with the premise of artificial intelligence (AI) confined within the boundaries of the amusement park. Human visitors wishing to play cowboy or cowgirl arrive in the Westworld amusement park on a train, indulge in their immersive vacation experience, and then leave on the train. The managed pleasures and dangers of the Wild West fantasy—supported by the robot hosts—remain cordoned off within the park and safely separated from the rest of the world. But don't mistake the enjoyable science fiction premise of "Westworld" for real life. Like the railroads that helped transform the Wild West, AI technologies have already begun sweeping across the land and and transforming the human communities they touch. They are poised to reshape the fundamental underpinnings of both individual human livelihoods and entire national economies. For now, real AI technologies do not consist of the sentient or possibly rebellious robot variety. A new report titled "Amplifying Human Potential: Towards Purposeful Artificial Intelligence" loosely defines AI as "any activity that used to only be done via human intelligence that now can be executed by a computer." Such AI technologies handle a dizzying array of tasks such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making and natural language processing in support of products and services used by millions of people every day.