The Incomprehensible Future of AI: A World Beyond Our Wildest Imaginations
As artificial intelligence advances at an unprecedented pace, the consequences and challenges for humanity are both profound and unpredictable.
In 2018, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said, “A.I. is probably the most important thing humanity has ever worked on. I think of it as something more profound than electricity or fire.” Imagine, for a moment, that he’s right. Our human bias expects tomorrow to resemble today, but with the rapid advancements in AI, the world 10 or 20 years from now could be unrecognizable.
AI is a loose term, but here it refers to systems like ChatGPT that feel intelligent and shape our lives. These systems are already here, but we’re just scratching the surface. The improvement curve for AI is staggering, with experts suggesting that the world could be “unrecognizably transformed” in mere months or years.
Would you work on a technology you thought had a 10 percent chance of wiping out humanity?
The AI community is living with an altered sense of time and consequence, creating powerful systems they don’t fully understand. A 2022 survey found AI experts estimated a 10% median probability that humanity could be wiped out or severely disempowered due to our inability to control advanced AI systems. Would you work on a technology you thought had a 10 percent chance of wiping out humanity?
The metaphors for AI’s potential dangers lie in fantasy novels and occult texts. Developers are essentially “summoning” intelligence without knowing what will emerge. They recognize the possibility of summoning demons, not just angels, yet they press on. Many feel a responsibility to bring this new form of intelligence into the world.
I cannot emphasize this enough: We do not understand these systems, and it’s not clear we even can.
AI is already impacting our lives in countless ways: from groundbreaking scientific progress, such as predicting protein structures, to nonhuman companions that some people prefer over human relationships. AI could put millions out of work, help terrorists or hostile states develop lethal weapons, and control critical social processes in ways we don’t understand or like.
I cannot emphasize this enough: We do not understand these systems, and it’s not clear we even can. I don’t mean that we cannot offer a high-level account of the basic functions: These are typically probabilistic algorithms trained on digital information that make predictions about the next word in a sentence, or an image in a sequence, or some other relationship between abstractions that it can statistically model. But zoom into specifics and the picture dissolves into computational static.
However, these predictions don’t prepare us for the true weirdness we’ll face. By “weird,” we mean things that deviate from the norms of informed expectation and challenge established explanations. We don’t understand these systems and may never be able to. They possess inhuman “thinking,” but we’ve trained them to appear deeply human, and the more advanced they become, the more human they seem.
The stakes are material, social, and metaphysical. As AI surpasses us in cognition, we may find solace in the subjective experience of consciousness — the qualities we share with animals but not AI. But we don’t have eons to adjust. Tech companies and nations are racing for AI dominance, and money pours into the field. Slowing down or stopping seems naive, as one entity’s hesitation will only be another’s opportunity.
To cope with this unprecedented transformation, humanity must either accelerate its adaptation to AI technologies or collectively enforce a decision to slow their development. Even doing both might not be enough. We cannot afford to ignore these systems and the strange, uncertain future they create. Embracing the weird and the unknown is essential, as skepticism alone won’t adequately serve us in the court of the mind.
The incomprehensible future of AI is upon us — a world beyond our wildest imaginations. It’s time to confront the consequences and challenges of this rapidly advancing technology before it’s too late.
