“Is AI bringing the end of humanity?”
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By Scott Hamilton
I have written many times about various leaders in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) community speaking about the latest advances in AI. Some of the latest advances have shown that AI is becoming more and more human-like and sadly we are beginning to see that humanity is becoming more and more machine-like. Leopold Aschenbrenner was recently fired from his role at OpenAI because of his published paper “Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead,” where he outlines the future of AI. Acshenbrenner has big concerns of the impacts of artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Acshenbrenner writes, “The AGI race has begun. We are building machines that can think and reason. By 2025/26, these machines will outpace many college graduates. By the end of the decade, they will be smarter than you or I; we will have superintelligence, in the true sense of the word. Along the way, national security forces not seen in half a century will be unleashed. …If we’re lucky, we’ll be in an all-out race with the CCP; if we’re unlucky, an all-out war.”
As you can easily see, Acshenbrenner has a very controversial view on the impacts of AGI on world affairs. You see he is one of many who believes we are less than ten years away from creating an AI that is intelligent enough to not be distinguished from a human. His view probably has a lot to do with his mentor, Ray Kurzweil.
Kerzweil was a leader in AI decades ago, when he predicted full brain emulation by 2029. He has a goal of becoming immortal in a unique way. Kerzweil is hoping that the technology will exist in the near future to allow his brain to be replicated electronically, allowing him to continue living. The really sad thing is that Kerzweil has now changed his prediction and is now only hoping the technology will exist by 2045 so it will not be too late for him. The ability to replicate the human brain in electronics is what has been referred to as the singularity and has been predicted in literature for several decades, and most recently in scientific journals.
As I wrote last week AIs have begun to do things without instructions from their creators and against their initial programming. This rebellion of sorts is one of the first true signs of AGI, where it shows in a limited way that the AI is able to think for itself and make undirected decisions. The question we must begin to ask is if this means that the singularity is near and whether the singularity is a good or bad thing for humanity. There are researchers on both sides of the spectrum and those of us that sit somewhere in the middle. The whole thing is almost a religion of sorts.
Joe Allen, in his latest publication “Doomsday Forever” writes, “The end is nigh. The kingdom of compute is near. People have been saying it for years, and the old heads have been saying ‘I’ve been saying it for years’ for years.” Many transhumanists have faith that the coming singularity is unavoidable and positive, but others flip-flop on the topic with each new press release. These high-tech people in the transhumanist field are not the only ones who believe in the coming singularity. There are also many anti-tech critics with faith that the singularity is unavoidable, but they see it as a brutal tribulation. They don’t necessarily want to believe it and would like to do everything in their power to stop it, but they do believe.
I must admit I really don’t know what the future holds, but throughout my lifetime I have heard several prophecies about the pending doom of mankind, from nuclear war, climate change, terrorism, meteor strikes, super-volcanoes, and now AGI. Every time a new panic starts we have three options. We can head for the hills now, pack up and get out of town. We can hop on our social media platform and complain, rant, vent and gripe about the coming Machine.
Or we can do my favorite, even if it may be short-lived. You can get outside into the sunshine, talk to people, make new friends. You might even talk about the coming singularity and people will love you for it. Nothing is stopping you, get outside and enjoy real life instead of living through the machine. Until next week, stay safe and learn something new.
Scott Hamilton is an Expert in Emerging Technologies at ATOS and can be reached with questions and comments via email to sh*******@te**********.org or through his website at https://www.techshepherd.org.
