With the lines between fantasy and reality becoming increasingly blurred, one cannot help but question, ‘Is AI a threat to humanity?’…

The answer?

An undoubtable yes.

Whereas artificial intelligence was once nothing more than science fiction, today, its presence poses a real threat to humanity.

Unlike the Terminator in the 1984 sci-fi/action film who is disguised as a human and is singular, working alone, AI is everywhere and doesn’t disguise itself as anything. As such, its presence is not a shock like the Terminator’s. We know it is coming.

Is AI a threat to humanity?

To planet Earth, the ‘higher power’, (nature or God, delete where applicable), introduced humans. Knowing that man could eventually surpass it, it was a positive intention, but a leap of faith all the same, this being something which we can liken to AI…

As humans are destroying the planet, artificial intelligence is destroying humanity, but instead of seeking to rectify the damage that has already been done, we are causing yet more damage.

Why aren’t we learning from our past mistakes?

The introduction of humans to the planet has led to the prolonged destruction of the planet… Animals are going extinct, the planet is warming at an unprecedented rate, and the earth is dying. But still, we do nothing.

We are not oblivious to the effects of our greed as much as we* are ignorant of it.

*Note: I say ‘we’ because they say we, but everyone knows that the ‘we’ in question is comprised of less than 1% of the global population.

‘We’ who are ignorant are they who control all the means of production, i.e., politicians and businessmen who, despite knowing the risks of artificial intelligence, push ahead with their plans regardless of their cost to humanity…

An existential threat

AI poses an existential threat to humanity as humanity poses an existential threat to the planet, and the source is all rooted in one universal thing: greed.

Power-hungry men will stop at nothing to get what they want, as the history books have proven true, and this is the concerning thing about AI…

When the creators of artificial intelligence are the very people who threaten the planet’s existence with their greed, will they pass the same values onto the ‘super-humans’ they are creating, embedding the same greed in AI to reflect their own (lack of) spirit?

Like humans, will AI also stop at nothing to get what it wants?…

What we are witnessing with AI is like something out of The Matrix, where humans and machines are set to be at war with each other, and AI’s proposed salvation is set to be humanity’s definitive downfall…

The man is astonished by the weakness of his power as the machine is astonished by the power of its weakness.

While AI shares many characteristics with our world leaders, something which it has to itself, a ‘unique selling point’, if you will, is its ability to alter the entire fabric of existence in any way it sees fit.

The most troubling aspect of AI is that, eventually, it will out-intelligence humans, (‘the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of humanity… It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate’ — Stephen Hawking), and when it does that, we have no control over its actions.

I visualize a time when we will be to robots what dogs are to humans — Claude Shannon.

As the American journalist and author, Nick Bilton, said to the New York Times, ‘The upheavals of artificial intelligence can escalate quickly and become scarier and even cataclysmic. Imagine how a medical robot, originally programmed to rid cancer, could conclude that the best way to obliterate cancer is to exterminate humans who are genetically prone to the disease.’

AI will always be drawn to the ‘option of least resistance.’

If, for example, AI is tasked with the mission of solving the climate crisis in the future, AI, upon opting for the simplest solution, will simply eradicate all human beings from the face of the earth. Why? Because to solve a problem, (any problem), we must first eliminate its cause.

Now of course as rational (sometimes) thinking humans, we don’t run to press the nuclear button every time we see a news report that details another flood, or another wildfire, what we do instead is consider ways that we can reverse the effects of climate change to ensure that planet Earth is inhabitable for generations to come.

This is the sensible solution, but not the simplest, and certainly not the quickest, hence why AI wouldn’t even consider going down this route.

If we tell AI to find a solution to solve the climate crisis, the obvious solution is to seek to get rid of the cause of the problem, which is us.

‘To save every other species on earth, we must eradicate humanity for the goodness of the planet’ is the (terrifying) thought process of AI, made even more terrifying when the man who is pushing it so much, Elon Musk, is quoted as saying, ‘With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon.’

How far will we take it?

AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else. — Eliezer Yudkowsky.

To ask the question again…

Is AI a threat to humanity?

While the creator (aka. Elon Musk aka. self-made supervillain) thinks that he’s immune to any destruction or troubles associated with AI because he created it, ‘I want to rule the world and I have enough money and power to do it’, AI knows that he’s mortal, just like every other human being.

Logical (AI becomes angry and wants to destroy everything), vs sympathetic (AI develops emotions and wants to make the world a better place), AI is destined to be either the saviour or the downfall of humanity, and only time can tell us which one it will be…