Artificial Intelligence Could be Our Gravest Existential Threat!
3 min readBy Apioth Mayom Apioth
Artificial Intelligence could be our gravest existential threat, graver even than the possibility of a nuclear war. It would involve programming vast fields of human knowledge into machines we thought were going to make our lives easier and wealthier. A mere Google search can generate thousands of results. If we were to perpetually embark on feeding our vast arrays of knowledge into the machines, what will become of us when the unthinkable happen? We have already witnessed how many deaths occur every year due to automobile accidents. Those accidents keep on happening even when we are controlling our vehicles; well, what about when we decide to let unmanned (independently uncontrolled) machines walk among us? Imagine, what could happen to a shopping mall whose robotic security guards suddenly turned violent due to a programmed defect of some kind in the system? The major cataclysmic threatening event they could inflict on us is of course war.
In the case there is the possibility of a nuclear war; states could take sides, and thereby helping in the creation of alliances. And our human empathy could kick in when the victorious side is seeing the defeated side in dire circumstances. In the possibility of a nuclear war, once side could end up winning the war, leaving that side in a good shape, while in the case of machines rising up against us, we could face a never before seen annihilation of an apocalyptic proportions. Machines don’t have emotions, and so they don’t experience compassion the same way we feel pity for others who are going through tough times. We could never deny the fact that not all machines would turn against us; however, the thought of having an adversary’s side completely comprising of machines versus us with our allied Artificial Intelligence is a burdening concern. Our adversaries could come completely programmed with smarter devices, capable of ending all human life forms on earth. Our human brain is, in a sense, limited to store countless portfolio of information the way machines are created to do. Machines, on the other hand, have the storage capacity to take in whatever we can throw at them, and they can even process that information with greater power of efficiency, unlike our much slower brains, which are prone to take a 15-minute break in between.
To avoid the existential threat posed by Artificial Intelligence, we should invest much of our time, energies, and resources on those devices we can operate, and focus less on Artificial Intelligence that could operate independently without our humanly touch. The more we allow Artificial Intelligence to take over our social environment, the more they are going to hit us hard. We will be okay if we keep all our created devices at a lengthy distance. Our biggest threat will come from diversification of Artificial Intelligence with everything pertaining our lifestyles. Creating independent Artificial Intelligent is tantamount to giving them our human spirit; which also means they can do everything we are all capable of, and much more, even driving us to the point of extinction. Obviously we are the brain behind all the modern Artificial Intelligence’s devices, and all the planned futuristic devices, so what is the big fuss all about? Anyone may ask. The speed by which they can attack our human race could be so damaging, that regenerating our kind may seem impossible to contemplate. Our brains go through some sort of procedures before they can actually come up with some inventive ideas.
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