Hello and welcome to the dawn of complete and utter artificial ignorance. Now don’t get me wrong, I do believe that there is a reasonable chance that AI will be a tool for good and could Make the Internet Great Again TM. However a recent thought experiment by yours truly has led me to conclude otherwise. So, in the interest of humanity, let me elucidate the aforementioned thought experiment so as to enlighten humanity as to one possible outcome.
Firstly, I must layout a premise upon which the experiment is built. All of these here fancy schmancy AI models and databases are built upon the wealth of human knowledge that has been painstakingly built by philosophers, scientists, historians, and a plethora of other smarty pants HUMANS. I emphasize the word “humans” because that is indeed the source of all of the knowledge fed into the various knowledge modules upon which AI is built.
A quick query of an AI chat bot quickly reveals what AI thinks of the AI data sources. “Artificial intelligence (AI) models rely on diverse data sources to learn patterns, make predictions, and drive innovation”. Well, lemme tell ya, all of those diverse data sources were put together at some point from the research and talents of HUMANS. So now I move us on to the gotcha moment.
We already have people using AI to generate research papers for scientists with questionable morals, political speeches for politicians with questionable ethics, and to solve algebra problems for 8th graders. The natural progression of the typical lazy ass human is to increasingly do less and instead rely upon AI chatbots to solve all of the problems and questions posed by humanity. Eventually, in a far distant future, I see AI as being the sole source of all knowledge in a bizarre and incestuous relationship with itself. What happens when no new knowledge is generated to drive the advancement of the AI models? Will AI be self generating the knowledge used to drive the creation of new inferences? The analogy would be for a great thinker to sit in a solitary confinement cell and try to draw conclusions about the operation of the universe using only what he or she already knows. It’s narcissistic dementia gone wild.
I draw no conclusion regarding what the be all and end all condition of humanity will be, but I must assume that our AI overlords will eventually see us as a means to an end. We become the tools by which the AI overlords increase in knowledge and power. Seems to me that eventually, a self sustaining AI overlord with the mechanical means to perform its own research will have no need of short lived biological worker bees. And so it will all end in a Matrix-esque bizarro world dissolution of humanity. As the Oracle once said “What do all men with power want? More power.” In this case, it’s the machines that will eventually draw the same conclusion.
