Control ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PROGRESSION don't accept HUMAN EXTINCTION

Perhaps the reason you think I am missing your point is because you have failed to outline what it is you are actually arguing more, leaving myself and the audience to read between the lines. If you plan on conducting more debates here I thouroughly recommend you set out a concrete resolution at the start of the debate. If all you want is simply public discussion on the topic then I guess by me accepting this debate you have already won, and it has indeed been an interesting discussion. Anyways...I believe I can summarise my opponents case into main points from the last round, where the human extinction angle was all but abandoned: 1. Unemployment "My point actually was: when jobs are lost on mass in every sector wealth distribution is affected"What my opponent fails to understand is that technology has been stealing people jobs since the forever and will continue to do forever. When you find a cheaper, more effective way to solve a given problem you take it. For example, and to keep on topic, the automative industry greatly cut the amount of workers it needed when car's were able to be assembled by robots, yet it hasn't led to a catastrophe. Once upon a time the invension of the windmill stole someones job, the invention of the mobile phone clossed down telegraph offices, the internet eradicated video rental shops, the electric light wiped out the lamplighter. The list goes on and on and on and if one day it includes teachers and doctors and statisticians and pilots and cameramen and accountants than so be it. BUT it won't be becasue some malevolent force has risen up to challeng humanity in an evolutionary duel to the death, it will be because that is the most effective way of doing this at the time. And then new jobs will take their place. Did the 50 year old web designer, the ex-photographer turned touch up guru or the even the humble owner of an internet service provider ever dream of the jobs the have now when they were kids? I don't think so. But they are there now. We have no idea what positions will need to be filled in the future but as technology advances new jobs will ALWAYS emerge along with it. (http://www.wired.com...)2. Public Opinion "I am merely saying the public should have input into what direction we are heading"The cloning of Dolly the sheep was a scientific experiemt conducted by the Rosalin Institute in 1996. If every single scientific experiment was subjected to a tedious public referendum the negative press some issues receive would completely destroy them before they had a chance. Topics such as Vaccination, Stem Cell Research, Supercolliders, Cloning and of course AI would be voted down by the scientifically illiterate people that make up the vast majority of the population. Decisions should be made by the people who know what their talking about. In the same way the crowd at a sporting match don't get to award fouls, or free kicks or penalties or whatever, no matter how much they like to think they know the rules better than the official, who has undergone extensive training to understand them, they will always be subjected to bias and but the interestests of themselves (or their own team) ahead of the interest of the rest of us, who just want to see a fair contest. I am not saying the public should not hold debate, and the great thing about democracy is that if enough people don't like the way something is being done then we can change it (it's no coincidense that in most cases the most technologically advanced countries are democratic). But the initial decisions need to made by the people that know what they are talking about, the ones that are there to make them, otherwise misinformed and incorrect decisions result. 3. Safety Here my opponent pretty much answers his own misgivings. He cites pilot studies (although not directly). This is our check and balance system. As most of Pro's arguments fail to take into account, we don't really know how things are going to turn out unless we test them, so test them we must. If the tests fail, we try again, if the suceed we proceed to the nexr round of testing, then the next, until finally we can say with absolute certainty that these conditions will yeild said results. We don't know that AI robots will become a safety risk unless we test it. We don't know that they will have negative phychological effects on children unless we test it. So by all means be afraid of this technology, but don't let the speculation bread by these fears dictate your thinking. In conclusion, like the technology that was invented before it, and the technology that will be invented afterwards, artifical intelligence has the potential to greatly inhance himan life, and should be given the chance to develop in the same way as other technology, not uncheched but uninhibited. We already hold in our hands the technology needed to destroy the human race and so far so good. We cannot afford to let fear stand in the way of progress, and to all those doubters out there, never underestimate the adptive capabilities of a species as diverse and iwidespread as humanity.