Opinion: AI is a Danger to Humanity
A lot of people are familiar with the film Terminator. It's a cult classic about how machines and AI (called Skynet) destroy the world through nuclear exchange, creating a war between machines and humanity. Of course, the film is nothing more than science fiction, especially the time travel elements and the 80s dystopian future. While it is merely entertainment, in today's case, it seems more terrifying and scarier with the growing industry of AI. And because of our growing reliance of AI in our society, questions are being raised about what would happen if AI were to break protocol and escape into the internet.
It all began with a former researcher of Anthropic, Jacob Coxon, who said that the industry has no safeguards to protecting us from a potential threat of artificial intelligence, even saying that it could “kill us all by the end of the decade.” It began to explode when more researchers came out and said that they agreed with Coxon and feared that AI could potentially pose a major threat to humanity if a slowdown didn't happen.
ADVERTISEMENT
Surprisingly even the major CEOs of the world's biggest AI industry, such as Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Elon Musk, have agreed that regulation is needed to slow down the fast-moving production. While their message has been taken seriously among world leaders, there has been little action on regulations from politicians from Washington, D.C. This is due to two different factors; the first is economical.
AI is a growing powerhouse of economical proportions; it makes millions from its profits and is being used everywhere from our government and hospitals. Even our video games are now using AI engines such as DLSS 5 from Nvidia, making games almost photo realistic. It would be hard to regulate the industry without facing an enormous financial cost to it, President Trump has even call AI guardrails unnecessary, during the UN assembly this week President Trump stated that to "stifle growth of something that will be bigger than the industrial revolution." The second reason is geopolitical, China is the second leading producer of AI manufacturing on the global stage.
ADVERTISEMENT
Throughout the past couple of years, relations between the Chinese and American governments have strained for a couple of reasons. From trade wars to trust, but one factor to this tension is between Taiwan. China claims Tiawan as part of its territory while Taiwan see itself as an independent island nation. The United States has never disclosed if they would ever support Taiwan if it was invaded but has economic benefits from the island nation and its chip industry that powers our computers and phones.
China, while still being behind on AI development, could still climb on top of the United States, which President Trump has been trying to prevent from happening. But, the competition should not be the focus for both sides of this AI competition. We are entering another global arms race, not nuclear weapons, but AI. If we were to implement AI at a pace that is continuing to move faster, who knows what could happen. And that is the scary part; we don't know what AI is capable of or how far we go to develop super intelligence.
