Could AI Prove to be Humanity’s Salvation ?

There has been much angst voiced in the media recently about the risks of AI being harmful to our species, most notably by the very people involved in developing it....

This is perhaps a reasonable 'gut' reaction to a technology which is developing faster than many of us expected and has turned out to be a powerful and transformative tool. It could certainly create havoc in the wrong hands. Personally, I’m not an ‘AI denier’ any more than I am ‘climate change denier’…both of these phenomena are appearing in front of our eyes, and only the cognitively blind could fail to see and accept them. What’s important is how we interpret them….and more to the point, how we act to mitigate their worst effects.

There are risks, certainly, in allowing AI to continue to develop virtually unfettered as we appear still to be doing now. We should of course regulate…and on a worldwide basis, with the regulators actually ‘having teeth’, but without 'killing off the golden goose'.

And therein lies the challenge. 

China appears to be receptive to a slowdown, given that it is currently somewhat behind the US and doesn't want to be left behind. Trump’s characteristic and quite predictable response is to say effectively ‘not on my watch – we must be ‘top dog’ and we can’t let China catch up or we’ll lose the battle’. 

Thus we have a ready-made AI ‘arms race’, which will inevitably lead to short cuts, resistance to scrutiny, and destructive tendencies built into the code to make it competitive, particularly in the military arena. It’s difficult to see how any of us can stop this race…at any rate while the same three elderly lunatics are running the asylum.

One hopeful sign, though,  is the growing call amongst many other world leaders for restraint and accountability. Understandably there is some resistance from the tech developers to rigorous, and to them intrusive, independent inspection, since they want to retain their competitive edge and have the freedom to do so. This reluctance could be overcome if sufficient pressure were applied by lawmakers. 

Ultimately only a relatively small band of software/hardware developers worldwide have the necessary skills to progress AI development, and they do already appear motivated to put the brakes on, so it’s probably here where maximum persuasion (and protection) should be applied. The emphasis will need to be on rigorous control of programming, and also on 'teaching' AI agents correctly - a human toddler is not born with the knowledge to tell right from wrong and needs to be taught this firmly, (supermarket tantrums notwithstanding!). The same principle should apply to AI agents - it's not sufficient just to 'let them loose' on the sum total of human e-knowledge that is the internet; there is too much 'bad stuff' there to corrupt them. We're finally realising we need to protect our teenagers from all that, so why not AI ? Firm human guidance is needed on how to use ithe knowledge correctly.

Do we really believe the suggestion that AI will actually destroy humanity within the next 10 years ?

Personally I find this one a little difficult to swallow.

Even if AI quickly becomes self-sufficient (and indeed self-aware) enough to develop a desire to hold us to ransom, it could only do so with physical help from humans. Robotics technology is admittedly developing almost as fast as AI itself, but the latest humanoid robots the Chinese have developed do still seem to have a habit of falling over, so probably couldn’t manage much serious sabotage on their own yet. 

A super-intelligent AI would also be ‘conscious’ of the need for some humans to maintain their support infrastructure – they would need us to a) build and maintain data centre structures,  b) generate the power to run their servers and c) keep their cooling water flowing to stop their servers overheating. Even if we fail to prevent them eventually going rogue, data centre construction and maintenance needs alone should give us at least another 20 years or so before they could afford to ‘dispense with our services’ by whatever means they chose.

Before we consign ourselves and our species to the dustbin of history, therefore, we should perhaps consider the problem from another angle.

While AI models are still under development, there is still time to ensure that the software is designed to prevent harm befalling humans. The author Isaac Asimov was well ahead of his game when he proposed his 3 lawsof robotics way back the 1950s. His SciFi novel “I, Robot” is a classic, and still well worth reading. If we are to place any controls on AI development, they should include a fundamental directive to protect humans from harm. This should be a core part of any AI agent’s programming than cannot be erased or conflicted, and its inclusion should be mandated by regulators.

If we manage to ensure this through the good offices of our programmers and their (human) masters, we will of course be in a much better position to ensure our survival.

There is, however, another important consideration which affects our predictions of AI's intentions towards us…that of AI self-preservation. Let me explain…

Homo Sapiens is a naturally warlike species – evolution has ensured this by ensuring that only the fittest (and most competitive) of our ancestors survived to reproduce. Our proven addiction to self-destruction would not escape the attentions of our ‘AI masters’ once they took control, particularly now that we live in a world bristling with nuclear weapons of great potential destructive power. To ensure their own survival, they would need to put these, and many of our more powerful conventional weapons beyond our use…leaving them in our hands would simply be too dangerous for them to risk, given current, and likely future, geopolitical rivalries. Despite the disperse nature of the internet and its built-in redundancy, data centres themselves are inherently sensitive beasts and require a continuous and stable power supply. This is easily interruptable by even the most lowly of drone attacks, so tight control of any sort of explosive weaponry (aerial or otherwise) would be a must.

Thus perhaps we shouldn’t be too dismissive of some of the positives surrounding AI…it might just save us…from ourselves !

First Published 19.9.26