A lot has been talked about the benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotic bots. The global tech leaders have a major concern that AI can end the humanity.
The tech titan, Elon Musk is one of the tech leaders to voice the potential threat of AI. Musk believes that if robots can do everything better than humans, the international level competition for AI will lead to World War 3. Musk went one step ahead and said that AI is a greater threat than North Korea.
Steven Pinker, the cognitive research scientist at Harvard has published a paper that expresses his concerns around AI. He writes, “We now have been told to worry about nanobots that will engulf us, robots that will enslave us, artificial intelligence that will turn us into raw materials and teenagers who will brew a genocidal virus or take down the internet from their bedrooms.”
If the AI is such a greater threat to the humanity, over-preparing to fight for threat also involve risks. The Harvard professor compares the nuclear arms race of the 1960s with the threat of Artificial Intelligence. Pinker compares the threat of AI with larger problems like climate change and nuclear war.
Pinker believes that AI is like a new version of Y2K bug. He writes, “This includes the possibility that we will be annihilated by artificial intelligence, whether as direct targets of their will to power or as collateral damage of their single-mindedly pursuing some goal we give them.”
If humans can create smart machines, they might as well be smart enough to test the said technology. The idea that AI is smart enough to take over is not logical. Pinker believes that AI may do the larger harm by accident. He is optimistic about nuclear war and climate change is a more realistic threat.
But let’s say the doomsday scenario does happen, people, are disincentivized to take any action. The cognitive scientist said, “If humanity is screwed, why sacrifice anything to reduce potential risks? Why forgo the convenience of fossil fuels or exhort governments to rethink their nuclear weapons policies? Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”