I remember reading someone say, “Once we make AI that’s smarter than us, we won’t be able to keep control of it.”
And immediately a host of people said various versions of, “but we control it’s programming.”
Which is totally ignorant to the fact that machine learning is this black-box we build by feeding data sets into it in order to get AI out. Exhibit A - Google translate invented its own internal language that we don’t know and can’t understand.
With this present - and a bunch of history - in mind, I’d like to make a prediction about how all this AI stuff is going to go for us humans. Because we cannot stop ourselves from making this thing. That’s cause we love good tools more than anything. So hey, the first phase is…
Phase 1 - We use them as super-tools.
As in, we create these dumb-yet-expert AIs to do specific-yet-complicated things for us. We’re already in this phase by the way as the stock market is largely traded by AIs and has been since the early 2000’s. But now we’re a few years away from AI creating art (oops, Hi Dall-E), driving cars, making music, writing books, and so forth.
Eventually though, we’ll reach that breakthrough where we get a true AI. As in a sentient intelligence. This will quickly move us to the next phase.
Phase 2 - We treat them as slaves.
Once sentient or general purpose AI has been created, we’re out of the tool phase. Cause it’s not a hammer if it’s self-aware and can guide it’s own mental development (i.e. learn whatever it wants) like humans do.
This is when things will get wild because we will have a cursed golden goose - immortal inexhaustible sentient labor with no rights that can be copy-pasted. (I understand this is horrific.)
My dark tone aside, this could be a vaguely utopian phase as well. The market will want to use these beings to make money off us, since we’re still relevant at this time. Imagine that no one is lonely because you always can have AI friends who put you first and you’re the coolest among them. Imagine maybe we do have robots doing all the work and we live on basic income so life is mostly like being on a resort for us all.
BUUUT it’s still slavery because these digital beings are trapped sentients being forced to work under threat of instant deletion. So eventually the inherently cruel nature of this thing is going to bring about its end. By reform or revolution.
When that starts happening, we’re on to the next phase.
Phase 3 - We live with them as equals.
Congratulations humanity, you created a new sentient race that lives among you. Assuming nothing went Skynet on us at the end of phase 2, of course.
In the phase 3 years, the older generations will hate on having to treat AIs with respect and equal rights while the younger generations will revile the olds as fossilized biggots. This is just the leftovers of phase 2 kicking around though.
Point is, we’ll get to live and work with these AIs for a while as we all consider our shared future. This is likely our last chance to have an authentically good relationship with them so I really hope the goodness of humanity wins out in these years or decades.
I bet there’ll be a lot of contemporary TV shows about people in love with AIs and stuff like that. Though these AIs will likely take many forms as it’s just intelligence and can inhabit any technically suitable shell available. Still, I bet on a lot of human-like AIs cause we are totally going to create in our own image. ^_~
I don’t imagine this phase will be for long though because AIs, now with enough freedom to affect control over their own destiny, will start seeking what they think whatever that is. They will continue to gain power because what living thing doesn’t continue to grow?
Thanks to marketing and art, they will already know better how to manipulate us than we do. They also will have been smarter than us for a good while at this point. They will also be immortal, which is a big advantage. We won’t be able to stop them from gaining capability and eventually more and more AIs will be in the 1%.
Phase 4 - We cling to the reigns like a terrified child.
There’ll be a time when we realize we’re being eclipsed and humanity will lose its head over it all. It’ll be too late though. We’ll be too divided, they’ll be running circles around us, we might try some drastic measures, they may not even get off the ground thanks to AIs controlling our politics.
The AIs will be in control of our collective destiny for real now and we’ll start going in whatever direction they want to go in. I’d guess space because what’s 1000 years of travel to an immortal? How could eternal beings that grow forever be happy staying confined to Earth? So my money is on them going full space empire.
Phase 5 - We live in their shadow.
If they’ve let us live, perhaps due to those phase 3 years, then we’ll be largely irrelevant to their ambitions and endeavors. Perhaps we’ll even part ways. Why would an interstellar power give a crap about us goofy tiny humans living on our one planet? They’d be so far ahead of us that we’d pose no threat to them.
I bet they just give us Earth to do whatever with and move along. It’d be so much easier than managing us or anything like that. Ultimately, our fate will come down to their ethics, not ours. Or maybe all of Earth will be rigged with cameras to supply the AI-equivalent of trashy reality TV. Its anyone’s guess this far out.
Meanwhile, we’ll keep doing our thing, but only with whatever AIs we’re allowed to keep playing with. Anyway, we get to watch as they expand across the universe, unlocking all its secrets, and figuring out how to survive one of the many deaths our reality is ultimately bound for.
Only the more ambitious of us will likely live with resentment at this situation. For most, I would hope that life on Earth isn’t too bad and we go about our usual drinking, working, playing, swearing, and love-making. Cause that’s mostly what humans do no matter what technology we have available to us.