How Machines will end us all
We’ve all watched that movie, mankind makes a huge technological breakthrough, usually involving some kind of sentient, self-actualizing machine, said self-actualizing machine realizes that mankind is a threat to both themselves and the planet and all hell breaks loose and proceeds to try and subdue/ wipe humanity off the face of the earth, and if Terminator has taught me anything, the machines are pretty good at whooping our collective asses.
However this trendy plot device in sci-fi may not only be within the realms of fiction and poorly done movies, (I’m looking at you Robot Overlords), the scary thing is our current day technology is already plenty capable of making us it’s retrospective bitch.
Back in 2014 family friendly South Korean company Samsung took some time out of their busy schedule from making snazzy mobile phones, to build the SGR-1 a freaking machine gun wielding robot installed along the border of North Korea.
fully equipped with a 5.5mm machine gun along with 40mm grenade launcher, and if that wasn’t already shit your pants terrifying enough, it can locate and shoot targets from up to 2 miles away, that’s an insane amount of distance, to put that into perspective the longest confirmed shot from any human sniper is only 1.53 miles which although impressive is significantly less than the Samsung’s terminator, and what’s more they can do it all in complete darkness.
Drop the SGR-1 in a well-populated area, give it the ability to move and oh boy are we screwed, you have yourself a killing machine.
Now before you give up on technology and go the way of the Amish, it’s important to point out that these robots can only shoot if given the go ahead by an external operator, which is amazing news for anyone who doesn’t want to get gunned down by the thing, so does that mean these Samsung bots are harmless?
Not even slightly.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where everything, and I mean everything, can be hacked, and robots are no exception, don’t believe me? Back in May of 2015 a team of scientist from the University of Washington managed to hack into a teleoperated surgical robot, used when surgeons can’t be in the physical location just to prove that they could, and when I say hack, I mean take complete control causing it to ignore all of the surgeon’s judicious intentions.
And yes, I know that taking control of good old surgical robots is not the same thing as trying to hack into the SGR-1, but this does mean that it’s at least possible for something along these lines to actually happen, taking complete control of Samsung’s killing machine and then swiftly proceeding to fuck shit up.
Replace the University of Washington’s hacking group with rough AI who can hack into and take control of these remotely operated robots, and you’ve got yourself a much lamer but just as deadly version of Skynet.
Now I know, I probably sound like the crazy homeless guy who frequents outside Starbucks, but hey if you don’t want to take my word for it, some of the smartest minds on the planet have signed numerous open letters discussing the possible risk that come with a self-aware AI, all presented at the international joint conference on artificial intelligence, and yes that is a real thing.
Some of my favorites include
“If a super intelligent system is tasked with an ambitious geoengineering project, it might wreak havoc with our ecosystem as a side effect, and view human attempts to stop it as a threat to be met”
And of course
“We could one day lose control of AI systems via the rise in superintelligences that do not act in accordance with human wishes — and that such as powerful system wold threaten humanity.”
And when I say smartest minds on the planet, I’m talking the A-list celebrities of the science world
· Stephen Hawking
· Elon Musk
· Steve Wozniak
And a bunch of others that I honestly have never heard of before.
But how can an AI capable of deciding that the human race kinda deserves to be wiped off the face of the earth, or put into those stylish human zoos I’ve heard so much about even exist, well if you’re anything like me and watch way too many robots taking over the world movies you’ve probably heard the term “Singularity” thrown around from time to time.
Essentially the Singularity is a hypothetical point in time and space where the laws of physics no longer apply, think wormholes that theoretically can move someone from two different parts of the universe instantly, there are a ridiculous amount of theoretical situations that count as a Singularity but the one I’m referring to is known as the “Technological Singularity”
As you could probably guess this Technological Singularity all starts with the creation of artificial consciousness, fully equipped with all the thought, dreams, emotions and opinions all the things the make humans ticking time bombs , including the most dangerous human trait of them all, the ability to learn.
And when I say learn, I mean whoop our asses intellectual style, eventually when it becomes smarter than the people who created it, it will then be able to create new computers even smarter and more powerful than itself, and then that computer will be able to design even more intelligent versions of itself, eventually this cycle of computers constantly one-upping itself will become so fast we can no longer keep up with our own technology, and when that happens, why would they need us?
I can already hear your skepticism, a self-aware AI that’s capable of reasoning, ideas and even a self-preservation mechanism does sound like something you’ll never have to deal with in your lifetime but before you write this off as your grandkids problem, listen to the wise words of inventor/engineer/all around smart guy Ray Kurzweil.
And as smart guys go Ray Kurzweil has a lot going for him, receiver of 20 honorary doctorates and honors from 3 different US president, author of 7 books, most of which are wholeheartedly based around you guessed it, sentient AI, and is easily one of the most well-respected voices in the tech world.
So pretty safe to say this guy knows what he’s talking about, he’s even gone as far as to pretty much map out a technology timeline that has been very tastefully coined the “The Kurzweil Curve”
And as technology curves go, this one has been insanely accurate, back in 1999 Ray managed to successfully predict the recent boom in wearable tech, on top of this back in 2000 good guy Ray also more or less correctly predicted that around this time we would be able to be connected to the internet 24/7, and thanks to the huge revolutionary strides that have been made in mobile phones, I would say he was pretty much on the money.
And what does Ray Kurzweil sweet technological curve say is in store for the future?
Well it’s pretty worrying.
By around 2025 Ray predicts that thanks to nanotechnology most diseases will be a thing of the past, which does sound like a bit of a stretch, he also states that there will be computers so powerful that they be able to perfectly simulate the human brain, culminating to some extremely smart AI’s.
By around 2035 Ray’s fairly confident that humans will have more or less perfected virtual reality, so much so it’ll be pretty much impossible to distinguish it from real life.
And by 2045 man will have reached its ultimate goal, of creating a living, thinking, feeling machine, the technological singularity, pat yourself on the back humanity, in less than 30-years mankind will have advantageously manufactured our own evolution, and possibly screwed itself over in the process.
So what does that mean for the rest of us?
Well as I already pointed out earlier they pretty much have everything they need in order to pretty comfortably eradicate the human race, all they need now is a few hacking lessons and a good enough reason, and the way we’re going right now I think they’ve got plenty.
