Talla's funding round included some participation from an AngelList syndicate. While trying to finalize things, I sent an email to someone at angel.com instead of angel.co. It came back so I tried to resend it but, no matter what I did, Google kept changing the .co to .com. It did this because it's "smart." I had sent 1 email to angel.com and zero emails to angel.co, so, surely this was a mistake and I didn't really mean angel.co... right? It took me a couple minutes to try various combinations of entering and backspacing/escaping/tabbing to figure out how to get Google to stop "correcting" angel.co to angel.com.
Much has been written about the concern of sentient machines terminating us all in some sort of hostile act. And much has been written about why sentient machines will be nice instead of deadly. I want to make a different point, which is - the machines may take over long before they are sentient. Let me give you an example.
I'm sure someone will build a machine learning tool that helps suggest what you major in when you go to college. Some people will follow the advice of the machine, and some won't. Those who do follow the advice of the machine will probably end up happier with their career paths, because the machine will be effective at some level and, there may be a placebo effect component to it as well. Over time, this will make the machine seem even better at placing high students into college majors.
Everyone will use the machine without question. And the machine can't make a "bad" recommendation intentionally. The machine can't experiment with your life in order to test its algorithms. That would be immoral. It can't say "my algorithms suggest you should study Accounting but I'm going to suggest Graphic Design and see what happens."
So, over time, it won't just be college majors, but career paths, job changes, employers, skills. The machines will suggest everything, and we will take their suggestions. They will make the decisions, not us. At that point, the machines don't even have to be sentient, but will direct most areas of our lives. In the end, the machines win wether generalized A.I. is built or not. The machines win because we humans will do anything to avoid making the "wrong" choice. The machines don't have to take over, we are already in the process of willingly turninging our lives over to them.