Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humans

Some of these experts are particularly worried about how networked artificial intelligence can amplify cybercrime, create fearsome possibilities in cyberwarfare or enable the erosion of essential institutions and organizations.

Anthony Nadler, assistant professor of media and communication studies at Ursinus College, commented, "The question has to do with how decisions will be made that shape the contingent development of this potentially life-changing technology. And who will make those decisions? In the best-case scenario, the development of AI will be influenced by diverse stakeholders representing different communities who will be affected by its implementation (and this may) mean that particular uses of AI – military applications, medical, marketing, etc. – will be overseen by reflective ethical processes. In the absolute worst-case scenario, unrestricted military development will lead to utter destruction – whether in a situations in which the 'machines take over' or, more likely, in which weapons of tremendous destruction become all the more readily accessible".

Jennifer J. Snow, an innovation officer with the U.S. Air Force, wrote, "Facets, including weaponized information, cyberbullying, privacy issues and other potential abuses that will come out of this technology will need to be addressed by global leaders".

Lee McKnight, associate professor at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies, commented, "There will be good, bad and ugly outcomes from human-machine interaction in artificially intelligent systems, services and enterprises. … Poorly designed artificially intelligent services and enterprises will have unintended societal consequences, hopefully not catastrophic, but sure to damage people and infrastructure. Even more regrettably, defending ourselves against evil – or to be polite, bad AI systems turned ugly by humans, or other machines – must become a priority for societies well before 2030, given the clear and present danger. How can I be sure? What are bots and malware doing every day, today? Is there a reason to think 'evil-doers' will be less motivated in the future? No. So my fear is that the hopefully sunny future of AI, which in aggregate we may assume will be a net positive for all of us, will be marred by – many – unfortunate events".

Robert M. Mason, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington's Information School, responded, "Technologies, including AI, leverage human efforts. People find ways to apply technologies to enhance the human spirit and the human experience, yet others can use technologies to exploit human fears and satisfy personal greed. As the late Fred Robbins, Nobel Laureate in Physiology/Medicine, observed (my paraphrase when I asked why he was pessimistic about the future of mankind): 'Of course I'm pessimistic. Humans have had millions of years to develop physically and mentally, but we've had only a few thousand years – as the world population has expanded – to develop the social skills that would allow us to live close together'. I understand his pessimism, and it takes only a few people to use AI (or any technology) in ways that result in widespread negative societal impacts".

Frank Feather, futurist and consultant with StratEDGY, commented, "AI by 2030 …. This is only about a decade away, so despite AI's continuing evolution, it will not have major widespread effects by 2030. With care in implementation all effects should be positive in social and economic impact. That said, the changes will represent a significant step toward what I call a DigiTransHuman Future, where the utility of humans will increasingly be diminished as this century progresses, to the extent that humans may become irrelevant or extinct, replaced by DigiTransHumans and their technologies/robots that will appear and behave just like today's humans, except at very advanced stages of humanoid development. This is not going to be a so-called 'singularity' and there is nothing 'artificial' about the DigiTransHuman Intelligence. It is part of designed evolution of the species".

John Leslie King, a computer science professor at the University of Michigan and a consultant for several years on cyberinfrastructure for the National Science Foundation's directorates for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) sciences, commented, "If there are evil things to be done with AI, people will find out about them and do them. There will be an ongoing fight like the one between hackers and IT security people".

John Markoff, fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and author of "Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots," wrote, "There are expected and unexpected consequences to 'AI and related technologies'. It is quite possible that improvements in living standards will be offset by the use of autonomous weapons in new kinds of war".
A veteran of a pioneering internet company commented, "In the face of managing resources and warfare – the big issues for AI at scale – the goals are not likely to be sharing and co-existence".

Dan Schultz, senior creative technologist at Internet Archive, responded, "AI will no doubt result in life-saving improvements for a huge portion of the world's population, but it will also be possible to weaponize in ways that further exacerbate divides of any kind you can imagine (political, economic, education, privilege, etc.). AI will amplify and enable the will of those in power; its net impact on humanity will depend on the nature of that will".

Sam Gregory, director of WITNESS and digital human rights activist, responded, "Trends in AI suggest it will enable more individualized, personalized creation of synthetic media filter bubbles around people, including the use of deepfakes and related individualized synthetic audio and video micro-targeting based on personal data and trends in using AI-generated and directed bots. These factors may be controlled by increasing legislation and platform supervision, but by 2030 there is little reason to think that most peoples' individual autonomy and ability to push back to understand the world around them will have improved".

Miguel Moreno-Muñoz, a professor of philosophy specializing in ethics, epistemology and technology at the University of Granada in Spain, said, "There is a risk of overreliance on systems with poorly experienced intelligence augmentation due to pressure to reduce costs. This could lead to major dysfunctions in health care or in the supervision of highly complex processes. A hasty application of management systems based on the Internet of Things could be problematic in certain sectors of industry, transport or health, but its advantages will outweigh its disadvantages. I do believe there may be significant risks in the military applications of AI".

Denise N. Rall, a professor of arts and social sciences at Southern Cross University in Australia, responded, "The basic problem with the human race and its continued existence on this planet is overpopulation and depletion of the Earth's resources. So far, interactions with technology have reduced population in the 'first world' but not in developing countries, and poverty will fuel world wars. Technology may support robotic wars and reduce casualties for the wealthy countries. The disparity between rich and poor will continue unabated".

Patrick Lambe, a partner at Straits Knowledge and president of the International Society for Knowledge Organization's Singapore chapter, wrote, "I chose the negative answer not because of a dystopian vision for AI itself and technology interaction with human life, but because I believe social, economic and political contexts will be slow to adapt to technology's capabilities. The real-world environment and the technological capability space are becoming increasingly disjointed and out of synch. Climate change, migration pressures, political pressures, food supply and water will create a self-reinforcing 'crisis-loop' with which human-machine/AI capabilities will be largely out of touch. There will be some capability enhancement (e.g., medicine), but on the whole technology contributions will continue to add negative pressures to the other environmental factors (employment, job security, left-right political swings). On the whole I think these disjoints will continue to become more enhanced until a major crisis point is reached (e.g., war)".

Mechthild Schmidt Feist, department coordinator for digital communications and media at New York University, said, "Historical precedent shows that inventions are just as powerful in the hands of criminals or irresponsible or uninformed people. The more powerful our communication, the more destructive it could be. We would need global, enforceable legislation to limit misuse. 1) That is highly unlikely. 2) It is hard to predict all misuses. My negative view is due to our inability to make responsible use of our current online communication and media models. The utopian freedom has become a dystopian battleground".

Marc Brenman, managing partner at IDARE LLC, said, "We do not know all that machines can do. There is no inherent necessity that they will care for us. We may be an impediment to them. They may take orders from evil-doers. They will enable us to make mistakes even faster than we do now. Any technology is only as good as the morality and ethics of its makers, programmers and controllers. If machines are programmed to care more for the earth than for people, they may eliminate us anyway, since we are destroying the earth".

Robert K. Logan, chief scientist at the Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab) at OCAT University and professor emeritus of physics at the University of Toronto, said, "The idea of the Singularity is an example of the over-extension of AI. Computers will never achieve an equivalency to human intelligence. There is no such thing as AW (artificial wisdom). AI as a tool to enhance human intelligence makes sense but AI to replace human intelligence makes no sense and therefore is nonsense".

Alexey Turchin, existential risks researcher and futurist, responded, "There are significant risks of AI misuse before 2030 in the form of swarms of AI empowered drones or even non-aligned human-level AI".

Adam Popescu, a writer who contributes frequently to the New York Times, Washington Post, Bloomberg Businessweek, Vanity Fair and the BBC, wrote, "We put too much naive hope in everything tech being the savior".

The following one-liners from anonymous respondents also tie into this theme:

• A cybersecurity strategist said, "The world has become technologically oriented and this creates challenges – for example, cybercrime".
• A respondent who works at a major global privacy initiative predicted AI and tech will not improve most people's lives, citing, "Loss of jobs, algorithms run amuck".

Other anonymous respondents commented:

• "With increasing cyberattacks and privacy concerns AI could connect people to bad actors, which could cause stress and new problems – even the simplest of attacks/pranks could negatively affect people's lives".
• "The increasing dependence of humans on computing coupled with the fundamental un-securability of general-purpose computing is going to lead to widespread exploitation".