Accelerating Fear of AI

The end is nigh?

There seems to be a rapidly growing fear over the latest advances in AI. So much so that it is becoming the basis of yet another “crisis” that needs to be addressed by governments “before it is too late”.

Some of this is economic, fear of destroying jobs, but this aspect is no different than the perennial fear of technological advance that has been with us since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

The real fear goes much deeper. Many are convinced, probably at least in part to all the sci-fi over several decades, that AI entities can and will (or already have) become self-aware, and thus self-directed. It follows from this that we would then no longer have any control over their actions, and because of their supposed superior intellect and efficiency , would decide the human race is inferior or even dispensable.

There is really little difference between this kind of thinking, and that which throughout millennia has given rise to belief in uncountable gods in every culture. The only real difference is that this one has been explicitly created by us, and so also taps into the more general fear of technology - that there is such a thing as it getting too advanced.

But the idea that some vast number of electronic circuits, combined with sufficient and sophisticated enough software programming, will somehow spontaneously become sentient, self-aware, and actually intelligent is no different than believing in any other kind of magic, miracles, or mythical beings. It isn't simply that it won't happen, it cannot happen.

That does not mean that AI cannot be used for evil purposes - that too is no different than any other technology or tool - but such abuse will be at the hands of human beings, not "AI beings”, and as with every other technology, that too can successfully be countered.

But if the development and use of AI is suppressed in our more peaceful democratic/capitalistic nations, you can bet it will NOT be suppressed in authoritarian/despotic nations, giving them any number of possible advantages over us, both militarily and economically . You can bet leaders of such regimes are cheering our efforts to restrict AI as a result of these irrational fears.

The best insurance against evil governments or organizations using AI against us is to preserve our freedom to continue developing and using it ourselves. There has never been a time where predominately free, capitalistic nations have not outstripped by far the advances and productivity of predominately non-free States.