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23 Mar, 2015

‘Computers are going to take over from humans, no question.’

Interview0 Comments

In an interview with The Australian Financial Review, Wozniak discusses a wide range of technology issues. He says he hopes Apple will get into the automotive industry and compete with Tesla.

There are an awful lot of companies right now who are playing with electric cars and there’s a lot more playing with self-driving cars, this is the future and it might be huge … there are so many openings here and it is perfect territory for a company like Apple…it seems like they might be hiring a lot of people who could really build a vehicle.

He goes on to talk about his growing unease with the increasing sophistication of artificial intelligence. He says he has come to realize that the warnings of writers about machine intelligence outstripping human understanding or capability within the next thirty years were coming true. Computing that either mimicked or attained human consciousness could become a reality.

Computers are going to take over from humans, no question…I agree that the future is scary and very bad for people. If we build these devices to take care of everything for us, eventually they’ll think faster than us and they’ll get rid of the slow humans to run companies more efficiently….Will we be the gods? Will we be the family pets? Or will we be ants that get stepped on? I don’t know about that … But when I got that thinking in my head about if I’m going to be treated in the future as a pet to these smart machines … well I’m going to treat my own pet dog really nice.