Why Artificial Intelligence seems scary
Imagine you’re a cheetah, the fastest animal. Let’s say someone gave you semi-prosthetic enhanced equipment to make you run even faster. Would you like to have it? Why not!
But does that mean cheetahs will be replaced by those enhanced limbs? Sounds stupid because how can an equipment replace the user of that equipment. Without the user the equipment has no meaning. So cheetah won’t be replaced but will gain an evolutionary advantage in the animal kingdom. Now replace the equipment with A.I. and cheetahs with Humans. Now, A.I. doesn’t seem scary at all. It is like our sidekick, just like Robin for Batman or to be more realistic, Jarvis for Tony Stark. Then why is the A.I. causing mass fear and anxiety among individuals and specific groups of people?
Three reasons why this is happening:
First, Our false association of ourselves with our intelligence. Just like in the cheetah example, cheetah has its speed as an advantage and we humans have zenith intelligence among animal kingdom. What speed is to cheetah is what is intelligence is to humans. Our identification of ourselves with this evolutionary advantage is causing anxiety of replacement by a computationally efficient mechanism. Once we realize this, we won’t be that afraid anymore.
Second, High skill demand. This is a very rational fear that needs a closer look. This is caused because we are progressing into the next stage, this anxiety is faced by the people who have lived quite a time of their lives in the age before the A.I. got used vividly. We need to make A.I. more inclusive in lives of people and we need to personalize the A.I. for people.
Third, Accumulation of A.I. in hands of specific people. Imagine just a small group of cheetahs gaining that enhanced limb , so they’ll have an advantage over other cheetahs and slowly this artificial selection will make the other cheetahs cease to exist. So if specific people gain the control of A.I. , then a lot of population might face the doom. So it is very important to have a uniform distribution of the A.I. to the rest of the world.
Lets say we solve these three reasons to be fearful, then the A.I. seems like a gift to mankind or maybe not. Maybe we never really needed A.I. , maybe we just invented it. But the thing is no matter what you think, this A.I. will be developed. It’s not about why but now its about by whom. And if we let it be developed by specific people then the third fear might come true and can lead to a catastrophe. Well looking at the A.I. from a deeper philosophical view, its seems quite humbling. We can look at it and learn that we are not our intelligence. We can start looking life with a deeper understanding, this can result in researches in deeper aspects of life. This can be the glass ceiling that we can hit and then begin to understand things beyond logic and intelligence. This can open a realm of opportunities in the field of true human nature. When all the data processing tasks will be handled by this A.I. then we can just sit down and see life with a meaningful way rather than a utilitarian way.
No one knows for sure what future holds, but we can always be prepared for what can come. Today or a decade after, this life will still have the same meaning, its about us when and how we realize it and make this life worth living.
