“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”
– Stephen Hawking, PhD.
This sounds like the sort of warning we are used to hearing from science fiction movies and novels, not world renowned scientists. It was all in good humor when movies like the Terminator and iRobot were playing on the fear of the working class; the fear that robots are taking their jobs, and soon they will take over the world. Yet these plots were disclaimed as fully fictional. They could be easily hushed away and we could all go sleep safe and content at night. But when some of the most prominent scientists in our community are telling us that we need to examine the rate at which we let artificial intelligence progress, it may be time to step back and examine.
Humans are still totally in control of their own affairs right now, and there can be no denying it. But if we take a step back and look at societal trends, we begin to notice some truly disturbing patterns. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, society has become increasingly reliant on the tools that we make. At first our tools could not operate without us, and now it is all but certain that we cannot operate without our tools. Imagine the cataclysmic shock our society would endure if all tools made with technology would shut down; our lives would fall apart. In this way, technology has made us intrinsically reliant upon it, rather than being the other way.
Armed with this understanding we may return to analyze the fear that machines have posed a real threat to humanity for over a century. At first they threatened working class jobs and rendered certain skills obsolete, but now the possibility is arising that machines may render mankind’s entire livelihood obsolete. As Hawking scientifically validates the growing societal fears, “Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, could not compete, and would be superseded.” It seems possible that fully functional artificial intelligence, which is on the horizon in just a few decades, can threaten our very dominance on this planet. Isn’t it ironic that evolution, which gave us our one great advantage over everything in the world, could hinder us and drag us to our ultimate demise? Is it possible that machines are gradually completing the dreaded progression from aiding our work, to slowly completing our work for us, to ultimately taking over our livelihoods, like an evil parasite? It sounds like a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, but often it has been said that the scariest stories are those with truth behind it.
Stay tuned next week when we explore just how easy it is for a machine to go haywire, as we explore the analogy between random mutations in organic substances and mutations in technology.
Cite: Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC News “Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind” 2 December, 2014.
It is amazing how dependent we are on our technology. Almost every aspect of government and commerce is tied to some form of technology. If we lost it there would be a total societal shutdown. It would be anarchy. This is especially true with the advent of cyber terrorism. With a few clicks of a button, a terrorist could shut down a power grid, or worse.
As a big fan of Stephen Hawking, I knew which speech you were talking about and indeed, hearing this from one of the smartest person of our century sounds terrifying. I cannot argue against your points because I have been thinking the same way for some time but I would like to know what you think we should do in order to stop this process of becoming totally dependent of technology.