Whereas many people think AI might be the best invention humanity has made, some people (including renowned scientists such as Steven Hawking) believe that the fact that AI is outsmarting humanity is not a good thing. In fact, these people have even raised concerns that AI may mean the end of humanity. For example, Hawking said: “I fear that AI may replace humans completely. If people design computer viruses, someone will design AI that improves and replicates itself” (Martin, 2017). This scenario, where AI is the predominant sort of intelligence in the world, is also called the AI takeover. Therefore, advocates of this idea have pushed scientists into researching possible ways to stop AI outsmarting humanity. Different science fiction movies have paid attention to a scenario wherein robots take over the world. In 2004, the movie “I, Robot” with Will Smith playing in it, was released. The story takes place in the year 2035, when many households have integrated robots in their homes. Then, when a large supercomputer that actualizes all robots gives order to all other robots to take over the world, a disaster emerges.
Can we be sure that this will definitely be the future of AI? The answer is no. Currently, there is absolutely no consensus on the direction AI is going. Many people doubt that machines will ever be capable of, for example, abstract thinking. Furthermore, they argue that robots can never replace interactions as we know as humans. Right now, AI is only able to perform in a very specifically defined task, and can only execute tasks that it’s programmed to do so. According to opponents of an “AI takeover”, the movie “I, Robot” is not realistic. However, they do admit that AI will definitely take over the entire business world.
Getting scared already? Let me know what you think about the future of AI for humanity in the comments!
References
Martin, S. (2017). Humanity’s days are numbered and AI will cause mass extinction, warns Stephen Hawking. Retrieved 16 October 2019, through https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/875084/Stephen-Hawking-AI-destroy-humanity-end-of-the-world-artificial-intelligence
I think that human society is more likely to collapse before complex generative AI reaches singularity (the point they beat us at thinking like humans). Currently most AI are designed with specific tasks in mind, tasks which are replacing human labor.
If you look at self-driving cars as an example, the moment they become more effective and cheaper than people, they will replace people. 40% of jobs globally are in transport, 40% of jobs are going away and the people will not have enough jobs lined up to compensate.
This will happen to almost all industries at some point, even creative ones as AI can already make music indistinguishable from human composers. Long before we get a terminator, we will have the collapse of the capitalist economy as their cost saving through automation made sure nobody had the income to buy their products in the first place.
Just food for thought.
Hi Nienke,
AI taking over the world is definitely a very interesting topic. There is a reason why influencers such as Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking are talking about it. I don’t disagree that AI can poser a potential threat for humanity, but I would argue the kind of threat that it would pose. For instance instead of the classic, killing humans scenario that is portrayed in many sci-fi films. Especially I the movies that you mentioned.
Personally I feel like the danger in AI would initially stem from data bias, where the data that we feed the AI may be somehow biased by us and from this data he AI will draw recommendations for us. However due to Polanyi’s paradox, we may not realise this bias and deviate to wrong conclusions which may be detrimental.
We might become a victim of the aforementioned scenario, before AI takes over the world.
Best wishes,
Roma