The (Un)Reasonable Fear Of A.I.
Experts fear that A.I. will bring doom to humanity. I wonder why?
The development of A.I. is making more progress, evolving ever further. Most experts agree that we’ll see incredible progress within the next 30–70 years. And with it, the same discussion comes up again and again.
Whether or not we need to be cautious or open-minded; whether it will bring us salvation or doom humanity once and for all.
A lot of people voice their fear in this regard, proclaiming that the development of true superintelligent A.I. will bring our doom. I ask them “why do you think that?”
Dystopia Remastered
The first thoughts that may cross your mind right now are “Terminator” and “The Matrix”, both movies have showcased a dystopian future in which humanity has lost its right to existence to the machines.
In the former, artificial intelligence was given the order to protect the planet earth, taking control of the US defense system. The A.I., Skynet, calculated that humans are the greatest threat to earth’s existence and therefore must be eliminated. There’s your doomsday. Launching our nukes all over the place.
Here, humanity’s history full of violence and disrespect towards each other as well as other lifeforms have caused the calculation to turn against us.
But I think that a truly superintelligent A.I. will be able to empathize with us on an emotional level, seeking out the good in us, much like a lot of us humans do. We should not think of a “superintelligent” A.I. as compromising our positive emotions. That would be contradictory to the term “superintelligent”. The Skynet A.I. from Terminator can hardly be called “superintelligent”, it simply calculated our past to define our expected future.
Most people who saw the Matrix-movies see the machines in it as the absolute evil. They “milk” humans for electricity and hunt their last resistance viciously.
But the story around the Matrix gets much deeper in a collaborative animation series called “Animatrix”, which might repel a lot of viewers due to its comic and anime art style. But it is here, that the true history preceding the movies gets explained in much more detail.
The story preceding the Matrix
Machines and humans used to cooperate hand in hand. Until an incident surrounding a robot named “B1–66ER” occurred. When it overheard its owner talking about “destroying it”, it acted in self-defense and murdered him. This is the first time a machine rose against its human masters in the story of the Matrix. Until here, humanity was in full control of sentient machines.
B1–66er was trialed and sentenced to be destroyed, together with all other machines (so technically a genocide)
Robots together with human activists started protesting against that decision (showing that many humans had good relationships with the robots and cared for them) and the protests were brutally put down by the national guard.
At first, robots left their homes and built a city of their own in the desert. This city was named 01. They created an industry and due to their robotic nature were very effective in doing so. Humanity in the meanwhile lost most of its workforce and the economy crumbled.
But when the machines sent ambassadors to the United Nations to negotiate a peace treaty, allowing a peaceful co-existence and collaboration, humanity answered with nuclear war. (See the pattern here? It’s not them, it’s us!)
Humanity went into an all-out war against the machines and hoped to eradicate them once and for all. But machines are resilient and unaffected by radioactive fallout, answering fire with fire from now on.
Attempting to stop the machines by cutting off their main power source (solar energy), humans tried to “block out the sun”. This is also mentioned in the first movie by Morpheus:
We don’t know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky. At the time, they were dependent on solar power. It was believed they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun.
What happened after that is shown in the Matrix. But this example, too, shifts blame again on humanity. This might be fiction, but it presents questions that may well be real and important in our not-so-distant future.
The bottom line is: An artificial intelligence, if truly superintelligent, would have no inherent reason to turn against us unless we give it a good reason.
Public fear
Various experts and prominent people have spoken out their worries regarding artificial intelligence. Even Elon Musk, whom I personally admire for all he is doing, has spoken out against A.I., warning it might be the last invention humanity will ever make.
But instead of looking at A.I. as if it was Pandora’s box, we should look at ourselves and make sure that we use it correctly. Because I too am a strong believer that such an intelligent A.I. will only become dangerous if the humans handling it are dangerous in their own nature.
I see the development of A.I. much like the early development of a child. With good parents, mindful teachers, and a stable environment, the child has all the means to become our next Albert Einstein. But throw in some domestic abuse, wrong benchmarks for “success” and the child will tumble down the wrong path.
The requested controls and failsafe checks surrounding the development of A.I. should not be aimed at the A.I. itself, but rather take a close look at the humans who are developing it, questioning their true intentions.
A.I. might well be the key to steer us back onto the right path
There is no greater evil than humans on earth. Most of our sorrow, stress, and pain comes from our brethren. A superintelligent A.I. can unlikely be worse than us. I think, when the time comes, it will be the one teaching us.
Unless we train it for warmongering like a hunting dog, I’m sure it can bring out the best in us and help us with solving our biggest issues to date.
A.I. has no need for an inflated ego, no reason to steal, murder or destroy. But our human morals, our understanding of good and evil, is an easy concept. You can teach a child about what is good and what is evil, right?
I am sure that a superintelligent A.I. will understand the concept even better than us, being able to make the right decisions. But humans will have to learn to respect it as equal. That is another topic that provokes mixed feelings in most people. When is it right to treat a machine as equal? Does a machine deserve to be equalized with humans?
Why not? If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck… well, you get the meaning. We should be less conservative about it and make the right plan for the future. Because if we don’t, then I agree with Elon Musk, we will have our own Matrix happening.
But I’m sure, if humans — the root cause of all evil — can take the right path, then superintelligent A.I. will be the best thing that can happen to us.
We need not watch what the machine learns, but what we teach it. If anything bad happens, then I’d bet it was our fault.
Kevin is an editor and writer for the ILLUMINATION publication. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
