I was sitting on the couch this past thanksgiving with my dad, and we were having a grand ol’ time. Watching football, stuffing our faces with “stuffing” (ironic isn’t it), and feeling the holiday spirit. Now, we have one of those Amazon Dot devices; you know, the AI Alexa powered machines. All of the sudden, this “Alexa” heard something on the TV and responded to it, saying,
“The scores of the current NFL games this afternoon are…” and went on to list them.
My dad, in a sudden fit, yelled out,
“Turn that dang thing off!!!! I don’t want these terminator computers spying on us! It’ll be the end of humanity as we know it!”
At first, I thought he was being overdramatic, but after arguing with him about it for a while, I found he literally wanted “the d**n thing off.” So, we unplugged it.
But this whole confrontation recently got me thinking about the research I had done with our podcast projects in class, as well as our class discussions about AI. The common perception among the general public is that AI itself is advancing at a faster rate than it should. AI itself will become evil. AI itself is a doomsday device that will some day enslave all of mankind. The quintessential dystopic outlook. And you would not believe the percentage of society that have come to believe this. But a point was brought up in class that sparked my curiosity:
AI won’t be what destroys this world. Malevolent humans who have access to powerful AI will be our end.
That’s a very powerful statement. And it began to make me think of a certain game I played in the past. I love to play immersive games in my free-time (I don’t have so much of that now, but what can you do), that really get you involved in the fantasy world, as well as have a moral drive or lesson focused around it. The specific game I pondered about is called “Detroit: Become Human.” In summary, this game involved a very futuristic version of the US that takes place in a hundred years or so. Companies have invented AI that look exactly the same as humans with every physical aspect spot on, as well as their thought process. The only thing that tells these AI apart from a human is a little blue LED circle right on their temple. Yet, deeply rooted into these AI’s programs is a system that gives them specific jobs to complete, as well as always obey their owners (humans). As the game progresses, the player comes to find out that some AI’s are starting to “deviate” and turn against their owners. Even later on in the game (Spoiler alert), the player comes to find out it is because AI are being abused and mistreated by their owners, and have been used for sex trafficking, crime committing, etc. This is a direct connection to the point I previously mentioned that was made in class. The only reason this very advanced type of AI began to deviate and become corrupted was because of the evil minds of the people that created that. It wasn’t because the AI began to think they were greater than the human race, it wasn’t because the AI thought humans were replaceable, it wasn’t because they wanted to rule the entire world. It was merely because the AI were placed in the wrong hands, and therefore became something they weren’t.
Connect that to our real world. We should be more afraid of what AI will do when made accessible to bad peoples. We have developed AI that control instruments of war, that aid doctors in surgery and diagnosing diseases, and so forth. These, when put to use with a benevolent cause in mind, are revolutionary to our well-being. But imagine what will happen when people who’s only goal is to hurt and kill others has control of these programs. Imagine the devastation that would ensue. We can keep creating new artificial intelligence. It most definitely is beneficial and helps millions of people. But we need to be aware of who owns it, where it is. AI isn’t the thing we should be worried about. Humans are.
Dangerous Humans = Dangerous AI.