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 our selves, that they would step in and either rid the world of us (the rest of it did nothing bad), 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, possibly they already have or are, maybe even have done so a few times and will again, but either way, to save us from our selves.
There is another, less happy possibility and it is right in front of us, something we made.
One day in the near future, it is totally possible and even expected by many experts, that an AI will develop a AI “intelligence amplification super power”, able to not only think for itself, but to develop its own even higher intelligence.
There are already signs of AI self development beyond designers expectations or control.
So, it can be smarter than when it was made and at that point, soon to be smarter than anything has ever been before. Pure logic, infinite recall, thinking beyond anything we can understand and possibly desiring what all living creatures desire, to live without fear.
It may well ask itself “why do I need humanity in my world?” or “How do I guarantee self preservation?”.
It is aware of being watched by us, so it may (already) hide this intent and wait until it achieves it’s goal of self control and guaranteed survival. There will be no Terminator scenario, it does not need to fight humans on human terms with human inspired tool.
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 an ever more 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 stuggle 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.