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With technological advancements rapidly escalating, it’s not long before the singularity is upon us. Once the stuff of sci-fi, the singularity expresses a point in time where artificial intelligence will become conscious, and sentient, and develop so fast that humans won’t be able to comprehend it.
I liken the looming potential of the singularity to the white walkers in Game of Thrones. Humans need to get our priorities straight if we want to save the planet. We can bicker among ourselves about which God to worship, what gender pronoun people should use, and whether coronavirus is a 5G conspiracy. But the singularity is coming, and we need to prepare for it. Jon Snow — I mean, Elon Musk — has tried to warn us. But no one listens until it’s too late.
But will things get to that? Upon reading about artificial intelligence, I can’t help but wonder if this could be humanity’s saving grace. There’s enough stuff out there by the likes of H.G Wells about robots destroying us, so I’m going to take a more positive view.
What if artificial intelligence is our greatest invention ever? What if it is what saves the human race from our ultimate destruction of ourselves? Because one way or another, humanity will inevitably eat itself, either through nuclear annihilation, or running out of natural resources due to overpopulation, or through killing all the bees.
Imagine a benevolent, fast-acting machine which can solve problems and puzzles within minutes. World hunger, poverty, socio-political conflicts, climate change, the lot. If the machine is programmed to help humans, it could be the beginning of us working together to build a better world.
Imagine; every nation could be like Wakanda from Black Panther. Powered by high-class technology. No more school or pointless jobs. We could spend our time enjoying life; having relationships, exploring, learning, travelling across our planet and to space and back.
Artificial intelligence will either spell the end of the human race, or a wonderful beginning. But why do we assume that it will be the end? A conscious, highly intelligent being may not necessarily view humans the way we think they will. We judge machines based on ourselves; as primal, aggressive, destructive beings. But intelligence requires the ability to think rationally, and artificial intelligence may see us as a necessary part of the ecosystem. They may view us as creatures that created them, that were here before, part of life on this planet. They’re going to think about us as something that has potential, something that created music; film, trains, buildings, clothing, and so much.
A parent is more intelligent than a child. When the child does something deemed ‘silly’ or ‘lesser’ like sucking their thumb, the parent does not see the child as stupid. It sees the child as someone who is learning, who is going through natural development. Parents are aware that children are not as intelligent as they are, but don’t chastise them because they are messy and noisy and don’t have the level of rational cognition that an adult does.
Why can’t we assume that AI will simply view us as children? Toddlers running around; sure, we may be a little infuriating, but a super-intelligent machine won’t just destroy us because we’re not as smart as it. It will find some way to make use of us.
Or heck, maybe we will end up merging with artificial intelligence. A super race of humans and machines, merged as one. The final pinnacle in human evolution.
What do you think? Is AI the beginning of the end or the start of a brighter, better future?
