Will AI every really take over the world?

There is little doubt that artificial intelligence has the potential to permanently transform our world. However, there is a lot of disagreement regarding the kind of future AI will usher in once it becomes more widespread. Some techno-utopians believe that humanity would be better off if it relinquished control of society to AI, whereas neo-luddite thinkers would say that this would mark our downfall as a species. Between these two extremes, there is a whole gamut of perspectives that lean to either side, but what they all share is the view that AI is the future, for better or for worse.

How can one technology evoke such a strong response from all parts of society? To grossly oversimplify the matter, the disruptive nature of AI stems from the fact that it is capable of performing tasks which could previously only be carried out by humans. Not only that, it appears that AI can accomplish some of these tasks better than their flesh and blood counterparts. This of course is nothing new — technologies such as the steam engine have enabled humanity to mechanize significant portions of the production process, leading to economic prosperity, but also causing far-reaching social changes. It is now becoming clear that AI is bound to produce the same kinds of effects, but we still know very little about the socio-economic impact it will have. In the rest of this article, I will explore the current state of AI, and the discourse surrounding it, in an attempt to gleam what the future holds for this breakthrough technology.

The State of AI

AI is a multi-billion dollar industry, surpassing $19 billion in annual spending. Companies in the healthcare, finance, and advertising sectors, as well as in the automotive, military, and video game industries are investing more money each year into AI, and one of the reasons they are doing so is out of a fear of getting left behind in the tech race.

The use of AI in games is especially poignant. Games like chess and go are frequently used to train and test powerful AI, and their track record is becoming better each year. More advanced games such as Dota 2 and Starcraft also include sophisticated bots that can rival human players in skill. Through these games, AIs are learning how to perform complex decision-making processes, which could one day translate into real-world tasks.

AIs are also being used for large scale data-crunching tasks involving big data. Through the use of techniques such as machine learning, AIs can detect patterns in data which would otherwise be very difficult to find.

Another field where AI is being used extensively is robotic automation. AI-powered robots are now capable of performing complex resource extraction and product manufacturing tasks without the need of direct human supervision. Such robots are housed in so-called smart factories, which represent the next step in the evolution of the industrial process. Other uses of AI tech include virtual assistants, self-driving cars, optical character recognition, computer vision, etc., a topic which you would be familiar with if you spend any measure of time online.

AI Fearmongering

Literature, film, and other mediums of expression have always been rife with cautionary tales about the dangers of technology, and AI is just the most recent topic to gain notoriety. A frequent element of these stories is the idea that at some point, AI will become sophisticated enough to surpass its creators in intelligence and power. What happens then is up to the discretion of the writer, but an AI future is predicted to be dystopian, post-apocalyptic, downright grim in nature.

It is assumed that once AI takes over, there is little we can do about it as a species. At best we might get subjugated by the machines, a scenario which has inspired the Matrix movies, and at worst we might get completely eradicated. Writers are not the only people playing around with these kinds of scenarios either.

The late Stephen Hawking expressed the opinion that if AIs ever become smarter than humans, they would become capable of creating unimaginable weapons of mass destruction, in addition to being able to manipulate human leaders with ease. The rate at which humans evolve would simply be too slow to compete with self-improving artificial intelligence. These are all just speculations at the moment, but a time may soon come where humanity might be presented with a choice that will determine the future of their species.

A Balanced Approach

Between the two extremes of embracing and shunning AI, there is a position in the middle that argues that we shouldn’t refrain from using this technology as such, but that we should be cautious in our approach. The scenarios that AI doomsayers are predicting might be theoretically possible, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are likely, or imminent.

The philosopher Hubert Dreyfus famously argued that under the current computational paradigm, AI will never be able to achieve feats that humans take for granted, such as having emotions, producing art, or solving problems through intuitive reasoning. In his view, this will severely limit the ability of AI to take over.

Scientists working in the field of AI research have argued in response that even if this is true, AI would still be a powerful tool for understanding how the mind works. Tech guru Bill Gates argued that from a technical perspective, it is not very likely that we would suddenly lose control to AI, a view echoed by Mark Zuckerberg as well. Then there are movements such as AI for Good, which are attempting to use AI to tackle some of the world’s most pertinent social and economic problems. For instance, researchers at Stanford are employing AI to analyze satellite images for the purpose of identifying which areas have the highest poverty levels across the globe.

Conclusion

Most of the talk concerning the future of AI still remains firmly in the domain of speculation. We still can’t determine whether AI will usher in a new golden age for humanity, bring about its downfall, or even end up a technological dead-end. Whatever the future holds, we can at least be certain that it will share little resemblance with the world we are currently living in.