Several tech companies are currently competing to be the first to create superhuman intelligence. A competition that both the business leaders themselves and researchers believe could have devastating consequences. – The biggest fear is that it will be so-called “lights out for everyone” – that all people will simply die, says Max Tegmark, professor of physics and AI researcher at MIT. A big problem with artificial intelligence is that at a breakneck speed it just keeps getting better and better – and in the near future is to be judged as superhuman. That is the opinion of over 1,000 researchers and tech leaders, including Elon Musk and Apple founder Steve Wozniak, who have therefore signed a petition demanding that development be slowed down. Another signatory is the Swedish professor of physics, Max Tegmark, who for ten years researched AI at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Bostan, USA. – Unfortunately, it has turned out that it is much easier than we thought to build intelligence that is almost as smart as us. Democracy threatened Max Tegmark, together with several of the leaders of the AI companies, sees a future where a superhuman intelligence first overthrows democracy – and then exterminates humanity. – The threat that is most acute of all, which both Sam Altman from Open AI and the leaders of other companies mention, is that this can destroy our democracy, he says and continues: – If a technology company succeeds in building superhuman intelligence, it is quite obvious that they will out-compete other AI and then of course it won’t take long before it takes over power from our democracy. Technology rally towards the abyss of humanity By extension there are scenarios where humans are wiped out by AI. That’s what Tegmark thinks, who compares the situation to the one that unfolded for the Neanderthals. – If we build systems like this the way we do now, when we can’t understand and control them, we could end up in a future where we have to share the planet with these artificial intelligences that are smarter than us, says Sam Altman and continues: – It’s not that convenient. We can ask the Neanderthals how things went for them. The biggest fear is that it will be so-called “lights out for everyone” – that all people will simply die.
t4-general
A thousand AI experts sound the alarm: “The biggest fear is that all people die”
