An expert heard of the high probability that AI will wipe out humanity

Max Tegmark, physicist and artificial intelligence (AI) expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) there is a 50% probability that these technologies will end humanity in case they become more intelligent than the species.

In dialogue with the Swedish TV broadcaster SVT, the scientist referred to the extinction of different species over time to warn about the future of humanity. In this sense, he maintained that history destroyed that the most intelligent species on Earth are responsible for the disappearance of those that are “lesser”as in the case of the dodo.

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In that regard, note that humanity could easily expect the same fate when AIs out-intelligence humans. Added to this, there would be no way of knowing when or how this event will occursince the less intelligent species in these scenarios have no way of knowing this information.

“About half of all other species on Earth have already been wiped out by us humans. Because we were smarter, they had no control. What we are warning about now is that if we humans lose control of our society before machines that are much more intelligent than us, then things can go just as bad for us“, remarked the physicist.

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Tegmark is one of the signatories to the one-sentence statement released this week warning of the risk of extinction at the hands of AI. “Mitigating the extinction risk of AI should be a global priority along with other risks on a societal scale, such as pandemics and nuclear war,” see the document.

Along these lines, some of the world’s leading scientists maintain that AI could be used to create autonomous weapons or robots that could kill, with or without human intervention. Added to this, be warned that even seemingly benign technology could prove fatal to humanity if not programmed carefully enough.

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In 2018 Tegmark had already announced the possibility that humanity becomes a slave to the machines it creates. He even stated on that occasion that some of those colleagues could accept the extinction of the species at the hands of the AI, since he considers it a natural descendant of the species.

Given this, he spoke about one of the points of view with AI, which consists of keeping the form of “superintelligence” under human control “like an enslaved dog.” “But you might worry that maybe humans aren’t smart enough to handle that much power“, he explained during a TED talk.

“Besides, whatever moral qualms you may have about enslaving higher minds, we should be more concerned that maybe superintelligence can outsmart us. I could escape and take control“He concluded on that occasion.

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