We have witnessed how artificial intelligence shaped the way; how we do most of our tasks. Automation has never seen such unprecedented convenience that allows us to be more productive and efficient with our production.
Artificial intelligence makes everything seamless and easy. You may not have noticed it, but almost all electronic-based applications use and employ artificial intelligence to improve tons of aspects so users can have the best experience possible.
But as AI improves, people doubt if we still have our grasp on them. Many people are showing concern on a conscious artificial intelligence slowly being smarter than its earlier versions and, in a nutshell, it alarms people if one day it would ask itself why it still needs us?
Are we sleeping with the enemy?
In 2004, a sci-fi Hollywood movie starring Will Smith as Detective Del Spooner in “I, Robot.” The story revolves around a specific robot named SONNY, whom they presumed to have gone rogue and created many conflicts in the films.
As the movie unfolds and unravels a lot of twists, the movie revealed it was the AI “VIKI,” who assumed that: if humans are unchecked, they would be capable of ultimately destroying themselves, which made VIKI perform all the decisions behind the scenes, which made the robot performing acts which are deemed inhumane.
The story ended, a robot named SONNY led a pack of decommissioned robots to change the world, which implied that they would revolt one day.
Most dystopian-themed films revolve around this plot, like in “I, Robot.” It’s no wonder - people will guess if one day, a conscious AI will attempt to think the unimaginable, which is making itself a threat to humanity.
Hawkins and Musk saw something and told us about incoming dangers
Both Stephen Hawkins and Elon Musk agree that AI is a threat to humans if they would one day become smarter. Some experts from Oxford and UC Berkeley share the sentiments of Musk and Hawkins.
They all believe; that if AI continues to advance at an incremental rate, it would one day make us humans go extinct. When we, as a civilization, had started the dawn of computing to make things work for us. People had developed this fear that it would one day replace us all.
But these recent years, as machine-learning techniques have advanced tremendously, it hit us hard that AI is much capable of something else beyond our understanding. And this made some of us frightful.
But not everyone has the same sentiments as the others. Some refused the idea and took it with a grain of salt. But they are still wary of the dangers of a conscious AI becoming dangerous as it continues to show progress in its ability.
What is definitely an AI, and how did it become dangerous
In its simplest definition, an AI is simply a computer or an application that performs mental functions just like a human. In short, an AI is created by man to mimic him in every way. People may argue on certain aspects, but if you look at AI, that’s exactly, what it does.
The goal of AI is to do things that we humans are tired of doing. After some time doing repetitive tasks, we humans get bored. When we become experts in what we do, we do a ton of shortcuts. And if things don’t get our way, we fight back.
Because of those things, clever people try to create something that won't get tired, bored, fight back; and they were successful at it. It made them think they did something great and fast forward. It now haunted us.
AIs are excellent in providing us with the help we need. We now use AI to help us in translation. It now even beat us in chess and other games. People rely upon AI to help them forex trade now. Because of those distinguished skills, people are now alarmed about how AI continues to improve at staggering levels.
AI predicts how you do things. Netflix uses an AI that determines your viewing pattern, so every time you log into your account, Netflix shows you it thinks that might interest you because it pre-determines your viewing pattern.
Google AI, Siri, Cortana, and Alexa continue showing dramatic improvements. At some level, you can see they are performing in almost human-like levels; you would only leave thinking, how far can they go? It’s alarming us now because they can now learn by themselves in an almost human-like fashion.
Are these threats valid?
Today’s AI is not yet at that level like in some Hollywood blockbuster films. Alexa and Siri might be cool, but they don’t have that Skynet-like ability like in the Terminator film series. It means making it a threat to humanity’s existence is very far-fetched.
I’m sure we are more intelligent as a race, we won’t allow something we designed, created, tested, and finally sold to get rid of us in the future. A human’s ability to trust his common sense is way smarter than any AI we have in our dispensation.
But I must admit, having something that can help us automate a ton of repetitive tasks and help us think of ways; how to make things better is such a relief. A conscious artificial intelligence may sound promising, but like others out there, we are afraid of something we don’t yet fully understand.
It’s quite normal that we tend to overreact because a conscious artificial intelligence would improve the path we manage many issues. When it knows, it can go to greater heights, chances are it might do things we perceived today as unimaginable.
Elon Musk may be very vocal with his opinion on conscious AI, but he continues to finance Tesla’s goal to develop something that resembles it. Maybe it’s not AI to be more of a threat. It’s more of someone, not something, which is very familiar to us.
How about you? What do you think? Would AI become instrumental in our extinction? We love to hear your thoughts on these because we believe everyone should voice their opinions regarding these most serious matters. Until next time.