The Seven Deadly Sins of AI Predictions

Mistaken extrapolations, limited imagination, and other common mistakes that distract us from thinking more productively about the future.

Chief scientist of Hanson Robotics, Ben Goertzel ©, ‘Han the Robot’ (R) and ‘Sophia the Robot’ (L) participate in a discussion about the future of humanity in a demonstration of artificial intelligence (AI) by Hanson Robotics at the RISE Technology Conference in Hong Kong on July 12, 2017 — ISAAC LAWRENCE/AFP/Getty Images

By Rodney Brooks

We are surrounded by hysteria about the future of artificial intelligence and robotics — hysteria about how powerful they will become, how quickly, and what they will do to jobs.

I recently saw a story in ­MarketWatch that said robots will take half of today’s jobs in 10 to 20 years. It even had a graphic to prove the numbers.

The claims are ludicrous. (I try to maintain professional language, but sometimes …) For instance, the story appears to say that we will go from one million grounds and maintenance workers in the U.S. to only 50,000 in 10 to 20 years, because robots will take over those jobs. How many robots are currently operational in those jobs? Zero. How many realistic demonstrations have there been of robots working in this arena? Zero. Similar stories apply to all the other categories where it is suggested that we will see the end of more than 90 percent of jobs that currently require physical presence at some particular site.

Mistaken predictions lead to fears of things that are not going to happen, whether it’s the…