Friday, April 22, 2005 The Age of Machines is here. To fear or not to fear?
The idea that machines with artificial intelligence might one day take over the world has been around for a long time. And a long time ago, that idea was ridiculous and existed only in the realm of fantasy. But as technology advances, it becomes apparent that computers becoming more intelligent than humans is not as improbable as we once thought. If machines do indeed become more intelligent than us, it is likely that humans will either become extinct, domesticated or kept in the zoo. We are to the machines what animals are to us.
Many experts have made detailed analysis as to the likelihood of such a scenario. I am therefore not going to spend time discussing that. What I shall discuss is whether it is rational to fear this scenario.
If we do succeed in producing a race of mechanical beings that is fitter than us in the evolutionary sense, then they will replace us as the dominant species on the planet. But if seen from another perspective, we are not really replaced by another race but are merely evolved. Human beings are not immortal. We are constantly replaced by our children who are not us but are created by us. They differ from us but are linked to us and our ancestors by the continuous chain of creation. Similarly, intelligent machines are our creation and hence our children. Of course, on a personal level, no one would consider a computer his child but putting aside emotions, there seems to be no logical reason why one should fear the human race being replaced by machines and yet accept the human race being replaced by smarter superhumans a thousand generations from now. Being afraid of machines taking over the world is like people who grew up riding horses fearing the next generation of people who grew up driving cars.
By now, you should think that there is something wrong with my argument because you have this uneasy feeling that machines are not humans while children are. The reason is that humans are irrational and this is your irrational side talking. Machines and children are not clear cut categories. What if instead of machines, I was talking about genetically engineered children? Or mutants, like in Xmen? What about cyborgs? Are they machines? How about mutants and genetically engineered children who are also cyborgs? Children with artificially enhanced brain? Children with partial synthetic brains? Children with fully synthetic brains, i.e. artificial intelligence with organic body? Where do you draw the line?
Any rational person should be able to see by now that there is nothing to fear when machines take over the world. Perhaps humans will become slaves, but that might happen even if human children take over the world. Humans are well-known for enslaving other humans.
Now, consider a similar scenario. Instead of machines, we created a supervirus that destroyed all humans but is very capable of surviving generations after generations, i.e. a virus that is fitter than us. Should we fear such a virus? The virus is not intelligent. It is not even visible. As with all viruses, they can barely be considered alive because if left unattended for a long time, they do not die. Viruses do not need to feed. It is far less human than machines. Now instead of viruses, what if we created a dangerous molecule that can replicate itself and it destroys all humans. Should we fear that? Where do we draw the line here? It is clear the line separating what is alive and what is not is fuzzy. Just as the line separating what we should fear and what we should not.
So should we be afraid of being ruled by computers? Of course not! Because we already are!
