Whither AI?

Photo by Kindel Media: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-delivert-robots-8566569/

AI is going to have,  without the shadow of  the slightest doubt, the most profound impact on human destiny since the time that people first learned to harness fire and invent the wheel. The fact that AI is on the cusp of thinking and making decisions entirely on its own without any human supervision or direction means that the future of human life on Earth will unfold in ways that we cannot even begin to fathom.

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The blurring of distinction between breathing and thinking living beings that humans are and machines devoid of life and emotion by allowing the latter to exercise judgment on behalf of the former poses a philosophical dilemma that has never confronted humanity before. We don’t know how AI thought, developing independently of human impulses, will evolve. What impact will it have on art, culture, morality and indeed human morality?

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The immediate fear that most people have on account of the dawn of the age of AI is of a loss of employment, particularly the white-collar kind. From coders and writers to doctors, teachers and researchers, everyone fears redundancy when pitted  against super efficient, remorseless thinking machines capable of easily outperforming them.

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The fear of new technology is one that humans have dealt with since the earliest times. Every new discovery and innovation has caused trepidation, nervousness, and fear amongst those who worried that the new way of doing things would impact the old one they were used to. Everything from the invention of the wheel and the harnessing of energy to mechanised transport and flying was met with fear and resistance. The fact that it all worked out well eventually often hides the immense fear, heartbreak and indeed the destruction of a certain way of life it accompanies. But in the eventual yardstick of what is seen as human progress, the emergence and adoption of new technology seems to have done more good than harm to human existence.

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Where AI promises to be different is in the fact that it may take away the decision making power of human beings by moving away from under their authority and developing agency of its own. To that extent, its further evolution and its impact on human destiny is as unknown as it would be if the aliens took over planet Earth one day. Where is AI taking us?

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