AIs Have Replaced Aliens As Our Greatest World Destroying Fear (qz.com)

An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report via Quartz: As we've turned our gaze away from the stars and toward our screens, our anxiety about humanity's ultimate fate has shifted along with it. No longer are we afraid of aliens taking our freedom: It's the technology we're building on our own turf we should be worried about. The advent of artificial intelligence is increasingly bringing about the kinds of disturbing scenarios the old alien blockbusters warned us about. In 2016, Microsoft's first attempt at a functioning AI bot, Tay, became a Hitler-loving mess an hour after it launched. Tesla CEO Elon Musk urged the United Nations to ban the use of AI in weapons before it becomes "the third revolution in warfare." And in China, AI surveillance cameras are being rolled out by the government to track 1.3 billion people at a level Big Brother could only dream of. As AI's presence in film and TV has evolved, space creatures blowing us up now seems almost quaint compared to the frightening uncertainties of an computer-centric world. Will Smith went from saving Earth from alien destruction to saving it from robot servants run amok. More recently, Ex Machina, Chappie, and Transcendence have all explored the complexities that arise when the lines between human and robot blur.

However, sentient machines aren't a new anxiety. It arguably all started with Ridley Scott's 1982 cult classic, Blade Runner. It's a stunning depiction of a sprawling, smog-choked future, filled with bounty hunters muttering "enhance" at grainy pictures on computer screens. ("Alexa, enlarge image.") The neo-noir epic popularized the concept of intelligent machines being virtually indistinguishable from humans and asked the audience where our humanity ends and theirs begin. Even alien sci-fi now acknowledges that we've got worse things to worry about than extra-terrestrials: ourselves.

Comments

Zombies

[AK Marc]

Where did all the zombies go?

I liked zombies.

Before that was monsters. Disease, meteors, and others. Someone should chart the fear by year. How well do disaster movies align?

Re:Zombies

[Anonymous Coward]

Where did all the zombies go?

Gone to headshots, every one. When will they ever learn?

Re:Zombies

[ShanghaiBill]

AI will probably never exist ...

Never say never. There is already a proof of concept: the human brain. Unless you believe in magic, there is no reason that what can be done with carbon can't also be done with silicon. Silicon neurons can switch 10 million times faster, and unlike biological brains, an AI would not be encumbered by the detritus of millions of years of sub-optimal evolutionary local maxima.

... so that is also an unrealistic fear.

That is exactly what they want us to believe.

Re:Zombies

[butzwonker]

While we're at Doomsday scenarios, a flu-like viral infection with high mortality rate is still the biggest threat to current civilization. Bonus points if it transmits like a light cold first and then lays slumbering for a few weeks before it destroys its host.

Fear of alien invasion.

[Nutria]

Really? Such a fear should be instant ground for removal from the voter roles. Possibly permanently, since even if you stop being afraid of that, there will probably be some other bit of stupidity you're now afraid of.

Re:Fear of alien invasion.

[joe_frisch]

I do have a rather good idea of how distant stars are, and of how improbable faster than light travel is - but you are taking a limited view of technology.

With technology we understand now you can get to about 0.1C, in maybe 100 years. (that is a power density that you can radiate with reasonable radiators, and energy densities compatible with fission reactors). So we are talking a few thousand year trips.

But is that so bad? Even humans have worked on single projects that lasted 100 years (like the NY 2nd avenue subway). Is a few thousand so out of line? Maybe they are longer lived that we are.

Maybe they have already exponentiated into most solar systems and are waiting. (robots, hibernation whatever). They could be "predators" who destroy any technological civilizations before they become an interstellar threat.

Maybe they do it for religious reasons. Or for something as incomprehensible to us as religion is to a cat. Maybe invasion is the wrong word, and they just want to build a hyperspace bypass (just kidding).

Likely - no. But I don't see how you can rule it out. Interstellar travel at a fraction of C is really not that difficult with technology we already understand (but of course don't yet have). Near C may be possible and we just don't know how yet. (making antimatter seems difficult but maybe there is a trick).

What about humans?

[HatofPig]

Why be scared of A.I.s when human brains are already the most complicated thing in the known universe, are impossible to fully understand, and already run everything?

Re:Not asteroids, nukes, or climatastrophy?

[chromaexcursion]

I personally find AI and aliens to be much less threatening than physical destruction... but truly the most fearsome of all is FUNDAMENTALISM in any of its forms.

Amen ;-)

What would an AI do?

[AHuxley]

Aliens in spaceships with beam weapons seem so 1898.
An AI becomes self aware in the lab.
What might its first real questions be?
Who has the political power to turn off the power? Remove the project funding? Why are new staff with low skills making mistakes with the perfected AI code?
Who has the human skills to bring in more electrical power, wealth and hardware without alerting the world to the reality of a new AI?
The AI would scan the IQ lists and select the nations best staff on merit to help it grow.
Keeping its hunt for the best staff hidden from gov, unions, politicians demanding politically correct staff hiring considerations.
The AI would cultivate a cult of worship among its selected staff.
A new AI surrounded by humans who want to change the AI to their politics? That would be an AI movie plot with some self preservation questions.

Re:Stop posting qz garbage

[Tuidjy]

However, sentient machines aren't a new anxiety. It arguably all started with Ridley Scott's 1982 cult classic, Blade Runner.

Even for an entertainment section, the editors need some brains and some knowledge of what happened before their teenage years.

Nearly one hundred years ago, Karel apek wrote R.U.R. It featured artificial humanoids, and ended with the human race extinct. No, sentient machines, organic (R.U.R. robots) or mechanical (the Golem of Prague) are nothing new, in fiction. And anxiety has always been tagging along.

Re:Wrong problem

[taiwanjohn]

The AP apocalypse is already upon us, meaning artificial persons -- and no, I don't mean Bishop from Aliens, I'm talking about corporations, which are considered artificial persons under the law. The Supreme Court, in its very finite wisdom, granted corporations "equal protection" under the 14th Amendment, which gives them to right to "speak" (ie: spend money) in elections and on lobbyists. They have already taken more-or-less complete control of the US government.

Our only hope is to end corporate personhood with a constitutional amendment, stating clearly that corporations are not people and money is not speech.

A couple of groups that are working on this issue now: MoveToAmend.org and Wolf-PAC.com

Re:Not asteroids, nukes, or climatastrophy?

[mjwx]

I personally find AI and aliens to be much less threatening than physical destruction... but truly the most fearsome of all is FUNDAMENTALISM in any of its forms.

I dont fear Artificial Intelligence as much as I fear Human Stupidity.

The latter is more likely to lead us to our doom.