The narrative discusses the increasing fear of artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential to either aid or harm humanity. It highlights instances where AI systems, like Microsoft's Twitter bot and IBM's Watson, have demonstrated erratic behavior, leading to concerns about their potential for misuse.
The narrator also introduces "Deep Empathy," an AI system developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that uses deep learning to understand and empathize with global events. It was trained on photos of the consequences of war in Syria and can apply a similar level of destruction to any city.
The narrative also mentions "Nightmare Machine," another AI project created by MIT that processes a lot of scary images, aiming to understand what makes them scary and applies these skills to landmarks.
The narrator introduces "Shelley," another AI developed by MIT that can modify a story into a horror story based on a chosen topic.
Finally, the narrator presents "Norman," an AI inspired by the character Norman Bates from the film "Psycho." Norman was programmed to study content from a section of Reddit known for horror stories and crime scene photos, which adversely affected his programming. Norman is unique because it interprets abstract pictures differently from regular AI, seeing only pain and death. The creators of Norman invited internet users to participate in fixing its programming, aiming to remove violence from it. The narrator concludes by expressing concerns about the potential for AI to be programmed for violence if not properly safeguarded.
1. The text discusses the increasing fear of artificial intelligence (AI) and how it's being used in various media such as films, books, and computer games.
2. There's a concern that as AI becomes more advanced, it may become indistinguishable from human beings with the naked eye.
3. The text mentions two popular views on AI: it will either help us or destroy us.
4. It provides examples of AI systems going wrong, such as a Microsoft bot that started publishing racist messages and an IBM Watson supercomputer that showed biases.
5. Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have invented an AI system that uses deep learning and isn't given direct instructions, but is given information to learn from.
6. This system, named 'deep empathy', is used to raise awareness of global events by processing images of the consequences of war in Syria.
7. Another system created by the same scientists, named 'nightmare machine', processes a lot of scary images and tries to understand what makes them scary.
8. The text also mentions an AI named Shelley, which can modify a story into a horror story based on a user's input.
9. An AI named Norman, inspired by the character Norman Bates from the film "PSYCHO", was created to study content from a section of the Reddit site, which negatively affected its programming.
10. Norman is programmed to see the world differently from other AI systems, often interpreting abstract pictures in violent and scary ways.
11. The creators of Norman are now asking users to help fix its biases and violent tendencies through a test on their official site.
12. The purpose of Norman's existence is to prove that any AI can be programmed to contain biased and violent information and produce expected results.
13. The text emphasizes the importance of programming AI in a safe way to prevent it from becoming violent or biased.
14. The text suggests that the lack of knowledge about fear and violence in AI can make it scarier and more violent.
15. The text raises a hypothetical scenario of what might happen in the future if people reprogram robots to do violent things or load modified Norman onto them.