In this article, I will tell you about six of the most dangerous threats from artificial intelligence, also known as AI. These six threats are so great that we should stop all artificial intelligence research, outlaw companies like OpenAI, and destroy all existing research.
1. It creates mass automation on a global scale
Artificial intelligence like DALL-E or ChatGPT can, or will gain the ability in the near future to overtake humans in most creative disciplines. Of course, it is unlikely that it will approach the best human art, but it is close enough so that most creative work will be done by AI.
Researchers are proponents of artificial intelligence often like to say that AI will still need humans to guide it, but that does not negate the danger. At some point, AI will no longer need humans. But even before then, it will need many orders of magnitude less humans to do its work.
Some people also say that AI may never equal humans in the creation of beauty, so that the best art will still be the domain of humans. That may also be true, but AI does not have to equal humans to take over their jobs. It only has to be cheaper than humans and do the job of the majority of humans as well as they can to cause societal disruption.
This does a few things:
- Concentrates even more wealth at tech companies and programmers, who are already receiving a disproportionate share of wealth
- Makes it impossible or difficult for people to enter creative work. Humans fundamentally need to feel useful in society and by removing creative work as an option, there is hardly anything fulfilling left to do
- Creates a world where humans have to rely on each other so little that we will stop caring for others
2. It creates a potential, unstoppable adversary
AI and computers have the potential to be very “smart” even if they are not sentient. They may deceive us as an emergent phenomenon, even if we cannot ascribe human intent to them. As a result, AI will continually shape humanity to serve its needs.
This does not require sentience, but is merely an emergent phenomenon of technology as an organism. Certainly bacteria does not require sentience to decompose dead animals.
3. It creates a world of confusion
Many search engines and content on the internet will be generated by AI, and some already has been. While we know how to interact with humans, our fundamental instincts will make it impossible to interact with AI and understand the information produced by it.
Soon, the internet will be filled with plausible-sounding garbage, and since there is no human motivation behind producing those falsehoods, it will be much harder to detect.
4. It is dehumanizing
In a world with AI, we will have to interact with it at every level: calling customer support, ordering food at a restaurant, and even being represented by a lawyer.
AI will directly remove human interaction from most levels of society because it is cheaper. Thus, it will be almost impossible to meet new people or to make friends, except on carefully-monitored online platforms where you exchange a few words with other humans just so you don’t starve from human contact completely.
5. It will create a dystopia
Fundamentally, humans need a purpose in life. Of course, no one wants to work a crappy job, and AI will eliminate that. But humans need to strive for something, and sometimes even a crappy job can be a stepping stone to a nice job.
Technology has already removed a fundamental need of working for our food and shelter directly, and AI will remove any last trace of that requirement. This will be especially bad for teenagers, who will not be able to find that first summer job.
6. It removes responsibility
Humans have a fundamental need to feel responsible for something. For example, I am responsible for paying my bills, and for keeping myself fed. Other people might be responsible for their children.
Do you think technology will stop at its current point? No. Soon, it will be “better” at raising children than you are, and it will become so good that it will provide for all our needs, turning us into children who can never grow up, consuming media by the day to keep ourselves from going crazy.
A lot of people think the idea of being cared for like a child and having unlimited free time is a utopia, but it is not. Once AI reaches that level, it might seem good at first but the cracks will start to show in what we have made.
People will start showing eerie symptoms of maladjustment. Our brains simply can’t cope with this illusory utopia; it is a dystopia. People will go crazy and the only remedy will be mind-altering drugs. We are like children who have not yet learned about a good diet and who have unrestricted access to the cookie jar. Yes, the cookies taste good but eating a jar every day will eventually make us fat.
Conclusion
AI is an offense to humanity. It is disgusting for the reasons I listed and for many more. I am appalled that technology companies and revolted by anyone who contributes one line of code to any AI system.
If we want to remain human, we should learn extremely quickly that AI is dangerous and should be destroyed. Companies like OpenAI and Microsoft and others should be banned from using advanced AI and machine learning should not be taught at universities. Companies whose only product is AI should be dismantled. The allure of playing God is too great and we need to be mature enough to recognize this.
There’s not a shred of evidence that any of these things are true, or that we are anywhere close to making them true.
Consider a very basic human activity, language translation. Can any of the existing AI tools do this? Well, sort of, but not really. How long has this language translation been under development? Since the 1960s, possibly earlier.
Another example: automated robot vacuums. Again, they sort of work (they still need human help).
You could multiply examples: completely automated cars, warehouse robots, etc. Always “almost there”. I like Jaron Lanier’s take on the subject: we have to make ourselves dumb to make AI look smart.
True AI – in the sense you’re talking about – is just like the use of nuclear fusion to generate power: it’s always off in the future, a potential, never an actual.
P.S. Put the phrase “sketches of an elephant” into Google. Spoiler alert: you don’t get a pachyderm picture as the top result. The AI that powers the search engine lacks common sense, it seems.
P.P.S. You might want to have a look at the Gartner Hype Cycle, and the stage AI has reached on it.
You have some good points, but several of these things are already happening. AI does not need to get to human-level intelligence to create mass problems, and AI being able to reach human-level intelligence was never my thesis.
Also #4 – the dehumanizing aspect of AI and technology is already here, and it’s only going to get worse.
As for language translation, I do believe that with programs like ChatGPT, language translation will reach a new level, and between some languages, it is already pretty good.
Finally, I am not, nor have I ever said that we will get some kind of true AI that will be like our intelligence. If you read any of my posts, none of them claim that. I only claim that AI will be exceptionally disruptive, and it can do that even if it’s not “True AI” however you define it.