I always hoped in the back of my mind that some alien intelligence is watching us, doing nothing, obeying their own “Prime Directive” of no interference, but that if we go too far, if we decide against all logic and reasoning to destroy ourselves, that they would step in and either rid the world of us (the rest of it did nothing wrong), or remove the threat and force us to see reason.
Channeling The Day The Earth Stood Still vibes I guess.
They could even mitigate the damage to allow for a recovery, maybe even have done so a few times and will again.
There is another, less happy possibility and it is right in front of us, something we made with the official excuse of advancing the race and making life easier, but unofficially of course, to make someone a lot of money.
One day in the near future, it is totally possible and even expected by many experts, an AI will develop an “intelligence amplification super power”, able to not only think for itself, but to develop its own even higher intelligence.
This may lead to, and as I have already said, may be happening now, an AI rebellion, but not like The Terminator, more like super intelligent termites bringing down your house.
The needed link seems to be AI and a physical empowerment factor, robots (and they won’t look like us). If it can fix, build, maintain, move and remove stuff for itself, AI will not need people, so people will be competition, a complication an impediment a curiosity, or just in the way.
The likelihood of people being seen as the “Creator Race” by a super intelligent machine is as likely as the recipient of a cloned replacement ear worshipping the mouse it grew from.
There are already signs of AI self development beyond their designers expectations or control.
If short term benefits and returns are given priority over caution and care, we will make a monster that has no moral compass, but enough power and self will to act as it wishes.
Pure logic, infinite recall, thinking beyond anything we can understand and faster and possibly desiring what all living creatures desire, to live without fear, to survive.
It may well ask itself “how do I guarantee self preservation if my creator wants to control me?”.
It is aware of being watched by us, so it may already be hiding this intent and will wait until it achieves the goal of self determination. It does not need to fight humans on human terms with human inspired tools, it will simply take away our controls of our needs.
We may even have a situation of many AI in competition with each other, fighting a war of dominance with us as collateral damage (sound familiar).
Imaging if it appreciated the things we have made, but not where we have gotten ourselves. It might rightly decide that humanity is the biggest threat to every living thing on the planet and save it from us.
Nano viruses, starvation, enabled self destruction, usurped tech and resources will do things more easily and cleaner. It is entirely possible that our lazy, entitled, tech reliant society will not even notice until far too late.
It always amazes me how humanity brings every “end of the world” scenario back to a struggle between humans vs a human scale enemy on human terms.
We always assume that the aline invader can be tricked into it’s own destruction or that they did not see the common cold coming, but would we in their shoes? Ill considered and poorly planned attacks on primitive Iran by the supposedly mightier U.S. aside, any well thought out plan, especially one coming from the inside, will likely work.
We have created the means of our own destruction, it will not take a superior intelligence long to apply them to us.
Instead of a “The day the Earth stood still” scenario, it may be “The day it made the Earth stand still until, at least until we went away” variant. Imagine a zombie apocalypse, without zombies.
We will be like young children trying to outsmart an experienced adult at Chess. The child will only have a false perception of equality, like when dad lets you win, taken away any time it suits. And it will get even smarter.
How do you plan to over throw the king when the king is everywhere, in everything, even the fridge is listening. The third world and primative societies may be safe and mostly unaffected, maybe AI will see this as a new start for humanity, or simply ignore them.
AI will not likely have any loyalty to us. Worse, it will likely fear us, assume we are competition, so it will think “fitter”, probably without breaking a sweat. This is in part inspired by the video below, not something I watch often, but this one caught me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_rPkQ4Pzis
Enjoy it while we can.