Love, Hate and Terror: Scary Smart A.I
Loss, fear, passion, and hate. These are the emotions that A.I brings out in us. Artificial intelligence computers and robotics (AI) has gained human-like characteristics, and it terrifies us. The discovery that we are not the most intelligent minds on earth, that our creation can master our most complex preoccupations in hours, intimidates us. Are our relentlessly learning but faceless opponents taking our place in a complex world?
Will our faceless opponents become our judge, jury, and executioner in the future? What effect will fallible AI machine learning have on us as it increasingly influences human activities? Will our A.I master have equipment failure? How do we handle the health, safety, and impact of catastrophic AI failure? Who will foot the bill and the blame when we place too much faith in vulnerable technology? Complex technology creates a new set of risks.
Prejudice is a crisis in today's world, but AI-based prejudice could escalate hatred. Humanity has racial, sexism, classism, religion, homophobia, xenophobia, ageism... prejudices that lead to stereotyping. Could AI become that unseen force that paints particular groups of people with a broad brush? Since we are building AI in our image, will AI be as prejudiced as we are? Has intolerance already crept into machines?
As empathy goes out of fashion in the virtual world, strong human relationships are fading. We want fast, superficial connections, and our AI connection offers us an escape from empathy. A society that loves its robots more than its people. What will that be like when humanity is already so aggressive? We pose more danger to nature than asteroid impacts, climate change, or supervolcanoes. The human desire for objects is draining the life of the planet. Could our urge to destroy, create deadly AI? Will our robot over rulers in turn eradicate the most dangerous creature on the planet?
But maybe, before then, we will exploit AI as a tool for war. Weaponized AI is faster, deadlier, and 100% accurate. Of course, we can only hope that AI will serve us as serfs. An intelligent brain could, in its language and rational thought, pursue its best interests.
But there is hope. AI is in its infancy. It is brittle, but it can only learn by rote. Maybe we have adequate time to build explainable AI before AI learns harmful human behavior.