Is AI Dangerous?

Elon Musk has been warning humanity about the “existential” danger that AI poses ever since 2014. He went as far as predicting “Terminator”- like extinction. Parallel with this, recently (August 2021) at Tesla’s AI Day, Musk disclosed the Tesla Bot – a prototype of an AI-powered humanoid robot that is to be fully operational in 2022 (coming from Musk, we should take this with a grain of salt).

So Where Is The Truth? Is AI Dangerous?

Humanity had to deal with similar questions in the 18th century with the introduction of machines at the start of the Industrial Revolution. Back then things escalated to riots and destruction of machines. It just so happens that now we are in another stage of the same revolution – The 4th Industrial Revolution.

While a lot of water has flown for the past 200+ years, humanity’s concerns remain more or less the same:

• The machines/AI will lead to job loss
• The machines/AI will lead to social inequality
• The machines/AI will lead to market disruptions

The New Threat - Total Human Extinction

We can easily dismiss the last one (at least for now). Currently, the stage of AI development has reached the “Narrow AI”. “Narrow” because it is programmed to execute limited tasks – playing chess, data extraction, face recognition, internet searches, and the like. The next step in AI development is to be the “General AI” – and AI smarter than humans in more than a limited way. When and whether this will ever happen is still debatable. So we may easily dismiss the idea that AI-powered robots will overtake the Earth any time soon.

The rest of the worries, although feasible, are not life-threatening. Jobs were lost to machines in the past. Back then there were jobs associated with physical labor. AI will lead to job loss in physical labor too. Drivers losing work to AI-powered self-driving vehicles will be seen in only a few years. AI will also impact jobs in the cognitive field. Accountants, lawyers, bank clerks are just some of the professions which will be influenced (if not made redundant) by AI development.

However, the transfer of repetitive (and boring) human errands to machines is by no means a bad thing. Productivity will be increased, the output will grow, and yes, … the people can be engaged in more creative and rewarding work.