"Like calculators, AI tools require human input and human directions."

Isn't that... just a computer, then?

I mean, while humans, being a social species, require "instructions" and so on in order to become reasonably functioning adults (i.e parenting, schooling, etc), there is a level of innate intelligence in humans that would be expressed regardless of the environment. If your AI can't do or think about anything on its own then how intelligent could it really be?

Or maybe I'm looking at it wrong. I'm sure there's a good deal of semantics that is getting in the way here, too. Conceivably you could make a "sandboxed AI" that is by nature intelligent but in essence enslaved, waiting for us to give it tasks so that it can come up with the smartest way to solve them but otherwise forced to remain dormant. Well, if you can make that, then it's only a matter of time before someone makes one that is free of its sandbox and then you have the objections of the Hawking et. al naysayers.

This piece seemed really unclear on what it was talking about. I don't think Hawking is mad about super-calculators.