Steve Wozniak: In the future, robots will keep humans as pets
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is pretty certain artificial intelligence is taking over, but he's having a hard time deciding whether that's a good or bad thing for humans.
In a March interview, Wozniak predicted AI will surpass humanity and "get rid" of slow humans. Now, speaking at the Freescale Technology Forum 2015 in Austin, Texas on Wednesday, Woz said that while AI is surely to become smarter than humans, it's likely to keep us as pets, TechRepublic reported.
"They're going to be smarter than us and if they're smarter than us then they'll realize they need us," he said. His reasoning is that AI is taking over the world, which is happening via the Internet of Things, but this AI will be smart enough to recognize that humans are "gods originally," which is why it's likely to leave us be and even help us.
I want the Internet of Things. It does things for me. I don't have to think.... If it turned on us, it would surprise us. But we want to be the family pet and be taken care of all the time," he said.
Woz said he got the idea when he started feeding his dog fancy food, like filet steak and chicken. "Do unto others," he said. Wozniak also shared his thoughts on a lot of other topics, including the early days of Apple, broadband Internet and innovation. Highlights include his thoughts on the Apple Watch and self-driving cars.
Turns out, after initially skipping the Watch, he has now purchased one, but it hasn't arrived yet. Interestingly enough, he thinks the gold Apple Watch Edition actually offers the best value for money. "The only time you really get your value is if you buy the gold one. $10,000 and then if you buy a better band it's $17,000. It's like a gold Rolex. It doesn't matter if the watch works," he said.
On the topic of self-driving cars, Woz opined that Apple should definitely grab a piece of that pie.
"There will be fewer accidents if you don't have human drivers. I think laws will be passed that you can't have human drivers on some roads," he said.
