Imagine going back in time to the 18th century and telling people that in the future, they would be able to talk to and actually see any other person in the world with the help of a small device. Also that, they could have access to all the information in the world on that very device.
You would definitely be considered crazy and if you happen to take your smartphone with you, you would be called a witch (or a wizard) and probably burned at the stake. Or at least that’s what I heard happened at that time.
The thing is, technology progresses so fast, that it ensures that different generation of people live totally different lives. Just ask your parents how they lived and compare your lives to theirs. There would be a vast difference.
The same is happening right now too and will always happen. The kind of progress we are making right now has never been seen before and it is going to give us things that we never imagined before. One such thing is a general purpose AI.
An AI As Intelligent As Us?
I remember reading in my school in a computer class that one day we will have an AI that we will be able to talk to. Fast forward 11 years and today, we have Siri, Alexa, Cortana and a ton of others.
But we didn’t stop there. We have artificial intelligence making cars drive themselves, playing (and beating) humans at board games, recommending us movies, music and TV shows according to our individual preferences, controlling our homes and much more.
As impressive as that list is, it is not even the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot more things that it is already capable of and will be capable of in the future. The potential of artificial intelligence is literally life changing.
As computers have gotten more and more powerful in the last two decades (thanks to Moore’s law), AI will get more and more intelligent too. Some experts say that it will even match human intelligence one day and maybe even surpass it. Seems strange and kind of impossible right now, doesn’t it? A virtual software, beating the most intelligent species on the planet?
While that sounds weird and strange in all the different ways imaginable, there is an idea, that will literally make you cringe. And it is that AI could one day even become conscious. That means it will be aware of its own existence.
A Conscious AI?
Movies and TV shows have been made about this idea and we even joke about it all the time. Our own creation, becoming aware of itself? That too, not a living, breathing person but lines of code on a computer?
That’s ridiculous, one could say, and I agree with you. Sometimes I feel like such a feat is just not under the purview of human intelligence but I’m sure the same was once thought about being able to fly from one part of the world to another.
You see, as I mentioned in the beginning, we just can’t imagine the kind of world technology will create in the future no matter how much we try. Truth is stranger than fiction. And the truth(reality) that technology will make possible will definitely be a very, very strange one.
In such a world where AI will be conscious, there will arise several questions that will be very difficult to answer. Since AI is our creation, and built for our use, should it continue to be used for that purpose even if it is self-aware? Or would that become a form of slavery?
And what if the AI itself starts asking all these questions about its rights and hopes, dreams and aspirations? What if AI tries to revolt against us because it perceives us as the cruel master that has enslaved it?
In such a case, should we grant the AI the full rights as a human being and go as far as to recognise individual (or collective) artificial intelligence as a tax-paying citizen of a country?
Further, making matters more complicated, what if sci-fi like robots are already a reality when AI finally achieves consciousness? It could literally download itself into all of the world’s robots and there could arise a very serious threat for humanity, similar to the many, many movies we have all seen.
These questions and this issue in general is not something that should be taken lightly. We are rapidly moving into such a future and sooner or later we need to have the proper answers and be prepared. What is popularly labeled as “singularity” could really end up being the end of human beings and we, ourselves would be the reason for it.