Threat of AI
As technology progress at rapid pace, artificial intelligence (AI) has taken precedence due to its immense potential of transforming the world. It essentially has been developed from human curiosity of creating a brain or consciousness in a machine so that it can learn, adapt and grow on its own. With new and improved AI versions entering our daily lives — such as chatbots, art generators and physical machines — many entrepreneurs and computer scientists continue to fantasise about the revolutionary aspect of how AI can change the essence of human life on this planet. However, a huge segment of the population is extremely wary about the consequences of such technology.
Elon Musk and many others have warned about the perils of unfettered AI development. Noam Chomsky believes that due to its statistical nature, AI will never understand the nature of intelligent being or about cognition. There is also another consequence that few have highlighted, and that is the risk posed to human rights. In this regard, the UN rights chief has recently warned that advances in AI pose a grave threat to international security, stability and accountability. The reason for this is that many countries have developed ‘slaughterbots’ that are designed to kill without human intervention. By alienating human from the act of killing itself, AI could indeed escalate military conflicts around the world — since we have seen post WWII what violence does to the human brain. The UN chief calls for preserving human agency and dignity in the wake of such technology and to at least have regulations and guardrails in place when using AI.
Do we have a backdoor in place if things get out of hand? While humanity can reap the countless benefits of AI, it cannot prevail over our lives. Human consciousness cannot be replicated.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 25th, 2023.
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