Podcast: The Hype, the Hope, and the Practical Realities of Artificial Intelligence, With Pedro Domingos

There is an inordinate amount of hype and fear around artificial
intelligence these days, as a chorus of scholars, luminaries,
media, and politicians nervously project that it could soon take
our jobs and subjugate or even kills us off. Others are just as
fanciful in hoping it is on the verge of solving all our
problems. But the truth is AI isn’t nearly as advanced as most
people imagine. What is the practical reality of AI today, and
how should government approach AI policy to maximize its
potential? To parse the hype, the hope, and the path forward for
AI, Rob and Jackie sat down recently with Pedro Domingos,
emeritus professor of computer science at the University of
Washington and author of The Master Algorithm.

Mentioned:


Pedro Domingos, The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the
Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World (Basic Books,
2015).

Robert D. Atkinson, “The 2015 ITIF Luddite Award Nominees:
The Worst of the Year’s Worst Innovation Killers” (ITIF, December
2015).

Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press,
1990).

Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osbourne, “The Future of
Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?”
(University of Oxford, September 17, 2013).

Michael McLaughlin and Daniel Castro, “The Critics Were
Wrong: NIST Data Shows the Best Facial Recognition Algorithms Are
Neither Racist Nor Sexist” (ITIF, January 2020).

“The Case for Killer Robots,” ITIF Innovation Files podcast
with Robert Marks, August 10, 2020.