The FHI’s mini advent calendar: counting down through the big five existential risks. As people on this list would have suspected, the last one is the most fearsome, should it come to pass: Artificial Intelligence.
And the FHI is starting the AGI-12/AGI-impacts conference tomorrow, on this very subject.
Artificial intelligence
Current understanding: very low Most worrying aspect: likely to cause total (not partial) human extinction
Humans have trod upon the moon, number over seven billion, and have created nuclear weapons and a planet spanning technological economy. We also have the potential to destroy ourselves and entire ecosystems. These achievements have been made possible through the tiny difference in brain size between us and the other greater apes; what further achievements could come from an artificial intelligence at or above our own level?
It is very hard to predict when or if such an intelligence could be built, but it is certain to be utterly disruptive if it were. Even a human-level intelligence, trained and copied again and again, could substitute for human labour in most industries, causing (at minimum) mass unemployment. But this disruption is minor compared with the power that an above-human AI could accumulate, through technological innovation, social manipulation, or careful planning. Such super-powered entities would be hard to control, pursuing their own goals, and considering humans as an annoying obstacle to overcome. Making them safe would require very careful, bug-free programming, as well as an understanding of how to cast key human concepts (such as love and human rights) into code. All solutions proposed so far have turned out to be very inadequate. Unlike other existential risks, AIs could really “finish the job”: an AI bent on removing humanity would be able to eradicate the last remaining members of our species.
Mini advent calendar of Xrisks: Artificial Intelligence
The FHI’s mini advent calendar: counting down through the big five existential risks. As people on this list would have suspected, the last one is the most fearsome, should it come to pass: Artificial Intelligence.
And the FHI is starting the AGI-12/AGI-impacts conference tomorrow, on this very subject.
Artificial intelligence
Current understanding: very low
Most worrying aspect: likely to cause total (not partial) human extinction
Humans have trod upon the moon, number over seven billion, and have created nuclear weapons and a planet spanning technological economy. We also have the potential to destroy ourselves and entire ecosystems. These achievements have been made possible through the tiny difference in brain size between us and the other greater apes; what further achievements could come from an artificial intelligence at or above our own level?
It is very hard to predict when or if such an intelligence could be built, but it is certain to be utterly disruptive if it were. Even a human-level intelligence, trained and copied again and again, could substitute for human labour in most industries, causing (at minimum) mass unemployment. But this disruption is minor compared with the power that an above-human AI could accumulate, through technological innovation, social manipulation, or careful planning. Such super-powered entities would be hard to control, pursuing their own goals, and considering humans as an annoying obstacle to overcome. Making them safe would require very careful, bug-free programming, as well as an understanding of how to cast key human concepts (such as love and human rights) into code. All solutions proposed so far have turned out to be very inadequate. Unlike other existential risks, AIs could really “finish the job”: an AI bent on removing humanity would be able to eradicate the last remaining members of our species.