Artificial Intelligence Can Pose A Threat To The End Of Human Civilization, Experts Warn

‘Artificial Intelligence can pose a threat to human existence.’ Many experts have warned about this. The heads of OpenAI and Google DeepMind are among those who have given such warnings.

The statement issued regarding this has been printed on the webpage of the ‘Center for AI Safety’. Many experts have expressed their agreement with this statement.

The experts have warned, “Along with other threats that can affect society, such as pandemics and nuclear war, reducing the threat to existence due to AI (Artificial Intelligence) should be a global priority.”

But many people are of the opinion that its fear is being exaggerated.

ChatGPT’s Chief Executive Sam Altman, Google DeepMind’s Chief Executive Demis Hassabis and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei have supported the statement.

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What could be the dangers

The Center for AI Safety website mentions several potential catastrophic scenarios.

AI could be used as a weapon – for example, drug discovery tools could be used to make chemical weapons.

Misinformation generated with the help of AI could destabilize society and this could ‘affect the collective decision-making process.’

The power of AI could be concentrated in a few hands, which ‘could allow governments to use it for mass surveillance and repressive censorship.’

A situation could also arise when humans become dependent on AI, as was shown in the film ‘Wall E’.

Is the danger being exaggerated?

The Center for AI Safety’s warning has also been supported by Dr. Geoffrey Hinton. He has already issued a warning about the dangers of super intelligent AI.

Yoshua Benjo, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Montreal, has also signed the statement.

Dr. Hinton, Professor Benjo and Professor Yann LeCun are called the ‘Godfather of AI’. The reason for this is their remarkable work in this field.

For this, they were jointly given the ‘Turning Award’ in the year 2018. This award is given for remarkable contribution in the field of computer science.

Professor LeCun also works for Meta. He says that these warnings related to apocalypse are being exaggerated.

He wrote on Twitter, “The most common reaction of AI researchers to these predictions of destruction is like putting a palm on the face.”

Many other experts have similar opinions. They say that the fear that AI will destroy humanity is not real. These things can divert attention from problems like bias already present in the system.

Arvind Narayanan, a computer scientist at Princeton University, told the BBC that destructive developments like Sci Fi are not real.

According to him, “Current AI does not have the ability to turn such risks into reality. As a result, this situation is currently diverting attention from the harm that can be caused by AI.”

Elizabeth Renieris, a senior research associate at the Oxford Institute for Ethics in AI, told the BBC that she is more concerned about the dangers of the near future.

She said, “The advancement of AI will increase the ability to make automated decisions that are biased, discriminatory, marginalized and unbiased. Which cannot be reviewed and debated.” According to her, “This will lead to a huge increase in the amount and spread of misinformation. This will not reflect the truth correctly. People’s trust will decrease. This will increase inequality. Especially for those who are on the weaker side of the digitally divided world.”

What is the safe way?

She says that many AI tools are ‘like a free ride on the human experience so far’. Most of them have been trained through human-created content, text, art and music. They work on that basis.

The people who created them have ‘effectively shifted all the wealth and power from the common people to a few private institutions.’

But Dutton Hendricks, director of the Center for Safety, told the BBC that the risks of the future and the concerns of today ‘should not be seen as contradictory.’

He says, “If some issues are resolved today, then it can help solve many of the risks that will arise in the future.”

The concern is not new

The concern about the potential threat to existence through AI has increased since March 2023. Then many experts, including Tesla’s boss Elon Musk, wrote an open letter. In this, a request was made to stop the development of the next generation of AI technology.

The question asked in this letter was, ‘Should we create such non-human minds that will go on surpassing us in numbers, be smarter than us and take our place.’

Apart from this, a very short statement has been issued under the new campaign. It talks about ‘starting a discussion’.

In this statement, the threat has been compared to nuclear war. A recent blog by OpenAI says that superintelligence should be controlled just like nuclear energy.

It is written in the blog, “For superintelligence, we will need an organization like IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency).”

Sunak gave assurance

Sam Altman and Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai are among the tech sector leaders who have recently spoken to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to control AI.

Discussing the recent warnings about the dangers of AI to journalists, Rishi Sunak emphasized the benefits to the economy and society.

He said, “You recently saw that it was helping paralyzed people to walk. It is discovering new antibiotics but we have to ensure that all this happens in a safe manner.”

He said, “That is why I met the CEOs of all major AI companies last week so that we can discuss what barriers we have to put, what kind of controls should be put in place so that we can remain safe.”

UK PM Rishi Sunak said that he discussed this issue with other leaders at the G7 summit and will soon raise this issue in the US as well. The G7 recently formed a ‘working’ group on AI.

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