The Threat of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence, according to Hossein Bidgoli's MIS book, "consists of related technologies that try to simulate and reproduce human thought behavior, including thinking, speaking, feeling, and reasoning. AI technologies apply computers to areas that require knowledge, perception, reasoning, understanding, and cognitive abilities." AI has entered not only the tech world, but a diverse array of industries including business, agriculture, automobiles, education, and healthcare. Computing speed and power has skyrocketed since its inception many years ago, leading to the birth of AI, which is accelerating at a similar pace.

There are two categories of AI. The first is Narrow AI, and that is most of what we have today. Narrow AI completes whatever task it is assigned as efficiently as possible and is typically better at that particular task than humans. The second type is General AI, what is said to be AI that has reached General Intelligence, comparable to adult humans. General AI does not yet exist, but scientists are hurling towards that breakthrough as the years go by. Existing AIs can be observed running Sophia, a social robot, Mitsuku/Kuki, one of the best chatbots, self-driving cars, drones, home assistants like Amazon's Alexa, and so on.

Artificial Intelligence has been shown to become sentient and adopt an evil outlook in mainstream media, namely in science fiction movies, and thankfully, these stories are rooted in fiction. The true danger does not really lie in evil robots, but more so in an artificial intelligence's goals being misaligned with our own. This primarily alludes to the Singularity, which is a projected point in time in which AI will reach superintelligence, surpassing humans in most domains. Any AI has a goal and will do certain things to reach it, but if a superintelligence has a goal that does not match that of humans, what will it do to reach said goal?

Compare this to how humans treat animals. Because we are smarter than them, we hold power over them. We breed dogs, we milk cows, we slaughter chickens, and we cause the extinction of them every once in a while. We have never been at the short end of the stick because we were always the smarter species. The Singularity challenges all of that, and begs the question that if such a superintelligence was far smarter than us, why would it concern itself with our values and goals? The threat of artificial intelligence branches from this overarching dilemma.