Guest Editorial: Opinion - Past a certain threshold, AI will be sentient and sapient — that is, it will acquire both subjective experiences and self-awareness. From there, it’ll start to make its own decisions, improve itself, and multiply. In one of the plausible scenarios, AI could decide that humans are lower forms of life. As a result, it may domesticate us, use us as raw material to produce energy (hello Matrix), or wipe us from the surface of the planet because we’re a net negative. If this sounds far-fetched, look at how we’re currently treating monkeys.
Chimps share 99% of our DNA. They’re practically family. Yet, we use them in lab experiments, lock them in zoos to entertain our kids, and toy with their biology to turn them into organic spare parts. We justify our horrible behavior by implicitly saying we’re superior. We’re conscious beings. We live longer. We’re also smarter. More beautiful. More sophisticated.
Now replace monkeys with humans and humans with AI. Computers have flawless logic, perfect memory, elegant designs, instant decision-making, and a virtually endless lifespan. If you consider the same standards that make us superior to monkeys, AI is superior to us. So let me ask you this. What’s more likely to happen: AI swearing allegiance to an inferior species or AI using us like we are currently using monkeys? https://onezero.medium.com/why-the-tesla-bot-makes-zero-sense-6f56e0b9d7a
And here is the reverse analogy: The prospect of smarter-than-human artificial intelligence (AI) is often presented and thought of in terms of a simple analogy: AI will stand in relation to us the way we stand in relation to chimps. In other words, AI will be qualitatively more competent and powerful than us, and its actions will be as inscrutable to humans as current human endeavors (e.g. science and politics) are to chimps. My aim in this essay is to show that this is in many ways a false analogy. The difference in understanding and technological competence found between modern humans and chimps is, in an important sense, a zero-to-one difference that cannot be repeated. https://magnusvinding.com/2020/06/04/a-deceptive-analogy/