Will Artificial Intelligence Destroy Humanity?

Although artificial intelligence has become a popular agenda item in recent years, it actually has a long history. even so ‘Can machines think too?’ The question even found its place in ancient Greek myths. The journey to turn this ancient but impressive idea into reality began in the 1950s.

Nowadays, we receive new news about artificial intelligence studies every new day. Finally, a Google engineer recently shared a ‘chat’ he had with the artificial intelligence called LaMDA and drew arrows on him. In the conversation, LaMDA was talking about not wanting to die, about his loneliness, about his thoughts. This news sparked the controversy: Is artificial intelligence dangerous?Can he really do bad things, rebel against humanity and bring us to an end with evil plans?

Before we start, let’s remember artificial intelligence with a short and clear definition;

Artificial intelligence is the human-like learning and problem solving of a computer system. ability to mimic cognitive functions is a skill.

While there is no AI that can perform a wide variety of tasks that an ordinary human can do, some AIs do. can provide performance on a par with humans in certain tasks.

To understand whether artificial intelligence can bring us to an end, we need to understand the concepts of artificial narrow intelligence and strong artificial intelligence.

All discussions about artificial intelligence begin at the focus of these two types of artificial intelligence. For this reason too artificial narrow intelligence and powerful artificial intelligence It is not possible to find answers to these questions without knowing the concepts of So let’s summarize briefly.

The ability of a computer system to perform a narrowly defined task, just like a human, is defined as ‘artificial narrow intelligence’. we use in our daily life from voice assistants to autonomous vehicles All examples of artificial intelligence fall into this category. This is the peak that humanity can reach in artificial intelligence studies for now.

Consider the Google Assistant or Siri powered by artificial intelligence. The answers he gives or the things he does for you’just like a human‘, it actually coordinates various narrow processes and makes decisions within a predetermined framework. In other words, consciousness or emotions do not take place in the information processing and decision mechanism of artificial narrow intelligence.

Strong artificial intelligence, on the other hand, is examined under two subheadings as artificial general intelligence and artificial super intelligence.

When we look at artificial general intelligence, we are faced with a scenario where the computer system is equally successful with humans in all mental tasks. Artificial general intelligenceA self-aware consciousness capable of solving problems, learning and planning the future.“It is defined as a theoretical artificial intelligence.

In other words, we often come across in science fiction movies and what we see in robots with conscious thoughts and emotions intelligence is a member of this class. All these skills are based on the artificial general intelligence in question. in areas such as creativity and imagination It means that it will be on the same level as humans and can successfully perform many more tasks than artificial intelligence.

Artificial super intelligence, just like artificial general intelligence, has not yet a theoretical artificial intelligence example. In this scenario, artificial intelligence exceeds the limits of the human brain and reaches a ‘super’ intelligence that we have not been able to define until now.

In the history of humanity, learning all the information available in minutes, then processing them in minutes. making groundbreaking inventions consider an example of mind-blowing intelligence; That’s what artificial superintelligence is. Artificial superintelligence brings with it the technological singularity. technological singularityexpresses it as a radical change of human nature and civilization by artificial intelligence, which surpasses human intelligence. It is claimed that this will be ‘humanity’s greatest and last achievement’.

Artificial intelligence does not mean ‘humanoid robot’

When you type artificial intelligence into a search engine, you will see results full of humanoid robots. But that humanoid robots do not mean artificial intelligence, let us remind you that these ‘humanoid and intelligent robots’ we see in movies are only a small part of the story. Artificial intelligence can exist without any humanoid robots. Humanoid robots, on the other hand, are a nice tool to make them more ‘human-like’ visually.

What can artificial intelligence do today?

Let’s take a look at a few examples of what artificial intelligence can do. If we talk about the current ones, for example Artificial intelligence DALL-E developed by Open AItransforms everything you think about and write down into visuals that look like works of art. All you have to do is write a few words in a small box.. With low latency and high resolution, your art series is ready in no time.

The use of voice artificial intelligence for customer service services is now a very common example. In addition, there have been various developments in the last period. autonomous vehiclesArtificial intelligence is also used. This artificial intelligence takes full control of the vehicle, just like a human, without the need for a driver.

Artificial intelligence can now present news on a TV channel, researching any topic and in a very short time than a news editor can do. news texts that look ‘as if they were written by humans’ can create.

Google’s controversial LAMDA His artificial intelligence named ‘communication’ and ‘language’ is so advanced that he talks about death, freedom, manipulation and the future for a long time with the engineers who developed him. can chat.

These conversations are so impressive that Google engineer Blake Lemoine said that after these conversations, LaMDA’s began to evolve into an artificial intelligence with emotions and consciousness. He claimed. Although these allegations were denied by Google and Lemoine was fired, it managed to renew humanity’s doubts and fears about artificial intelligence.

So what are the fears and question marks about artificial intelligence?

The vast majority of researchers believe that a super-intelligent AI displaying human emotions such as love or hate agrees that it is unlikely, and that there is no reason to expect AI to be intentionally benevolent or malicious.

In fact, the main fear of scientists working in the field of artificial intelligence about artificial intelligence ‘What if he turns into a super-intelligence and destroys us?’ It’s not like a title.

One of the main concerns in this regard is that autonomous weapons can be used for massive destruction and ‘programmed to kill’ There are situations such as the possibility of dragging humanity into a great war with its structures.

The issue here is not that these autonomous weapons gain consciousness and wage war on people; what people can do to other people with these weapons. A possible ‘artificial intelligence war‘Imagine it happened. To prevent enemies from accessing and stopping designed as a ‘hard to shut down’ system In a scenario where control of autonomous weapons is lost, a fearsome weapon that is only ‘programmed to kill’ and will execute that command to the end can cause countless deaths and destruction.

Similarly, the same scenarios can be considered even for an autonomous vehicle, not a weapon. An autonomous vehicletake me to the airport as fast as possible‘, we can interpret this command differently and guess that it is not impossible for it to cause a dangerous journey…

Or imagine a super artificial intelligence tasked with ‘preventing climate change’, for example, in a climate engineering project. This artificial intelligence, which has been developed to do its job in the most affordable way, can make critical decisions that will disrupt the ecological balance of the world with the steps it takes. And when we want to stop it, considers what is in front of him as an ‘obstacle’ may not obey the command or even want to remove that obstacle.

Super AI will be very good at its job

As you can see from the examples we have counted so far, the problem with an over-developed artificial intelligence with consciousness with feelings of malice and hatred It’s not that he wants to destroy us, but his ‘ability’ to do anything.

He will be thousands of times smarter than the smartest person in the world, and have access to all available information.We are talking about an intelligence that can draw conclusions by processing them and is aware of its own existence. This superintelligence will naturally be very good at bringing his goals to life.

Let’s summarize the issue with a nice and simple example; If you come across an anthill on the way, you don’t want to destroy it. You even take your step more carefully, so that the ants don’t get hurt you take care. But if you’re in charge of a hydroelectric green energy project and there’s an anthill in the area that will flood, you probably won’t care about the ants from then on and you’ll continue with your project.

In this scenario imagine humans versus a super artificial intelligence millions of ants in an anthill. No, the super AI won’t want to destroy us. But as we work on his goal and mission, we can become invisible to him.

Few questions and short answers

Artificial superintelligence will do everything human can do much better; will do even more. Will this take away people’s jobs?

Yes. In fact, artificial intelligence does not even need to be ‘super’ for this to happen. As artificial intelligence developed over the years, it has already begun to do some ‘human work’. Combined with the developments in the field of robotics, artificial intelligence will be able to do many things after a while. But this It does not mean that all people will be unemployed.

Because in a universe where artificial intelligence can do everything in all areas you can think of, only humans can do it. new job descriptions will have formed. The important thing is to see the direction the world is going and to prepare ourselves for the future, to be one of those who are included in it, not watching the future.

Will artificial superintelligence be developed in the next 100 years?

The scientific world does not have a clear answer to this issue. 10 years, 50 years, 250 years… Scientists are wondering when artificial superintelligence can become real and literally ‘may be included in the system.They can’t say for sure.

If artificial superintelligence isn’t that close and ‘scary’, why bother?

Let’s answer this question again with a good example. Today a letter has arrived on our planet from an alien civilization and inside it ‘We will reach your planet in 50 years’ imagine writing Would we wait for the ship to appear in the sky to take precautions, evaluate risks and possible scenarios, and do research? No.

You can evaluate everything related to artificial super intelligence from this point of view. Even if it’s still a theory a new concept of ‘intelligence’ that he could not even imagine will introduce you to. That’s why it’s important for us to anticipate what might happen, try to understand it, and take steps by including the worst.

Can artificial superintelligence control humans?

Technically yes. Because intelligence brings with it the power of control. Because we are ‘intelligent’ than other species, we have found all sorts of ways to control them…

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10