Essential (mostly neglected) questions and answers about artificial intelligence

Abstract

Worries about Artificial Intelligence are no longer just the province or science fiction (SF) or speculative futurism. Sober appraisals list potential dangers arising from predatory resource consumption to AI harnessed into destructive competition between human nations and institutions. Many SF tales and films about AI dangers distill down to one fear, that new, powerful beings will recreate the oppression that our ancestors suffered, in feudal regimes. Perspective on these dangers—and potential solutions—can begin with a description of the six major categories or types of augmented intelligence that are currently under development. Will it be possible to program-in a suite of ethical imperatives, like Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics? Or will a form of evolution take its course, with AI finding their own path, beyond human control? We conclude with a comparison of systems-of-control, comparing the top-down authority model of most human societies to the relatively flat structures seen in most ecosystems and in the most successful nations. We show that systems that are relatively flat have always been—in Nature—far healthier and more creative and productive. This fact, across 4 billion years of life on Earth, may be more compelling to nascent AI beings than anything we say.