
Pursuing knowledge and creating new inventions are the governing principle for humanity. In the beginning of human history, Homo sapiens created stone tools by grinding stones into particular shapes for a variety of usages. They also invented art by drawing images on cave walls (Mannino et al. 3). Thousands of years later was another significant evolutionary change as humans developed agriculture and adapted permanent settlement. This change allowed humans to introduce the first written scripts in human history (Mannino et al. 3). The most notable advance is the industrial revolution that took place in the eighteenth century, which allowed millions of people to move into urban areas, factories to mass-produce products, and economy to grow more than ever. Since then, humans began to focus on developing their intellectual abilities. As a result, an atom was split, the universe was discovered, and smartphone was invented (Mannino et al. 3). Today we, humans, can manage millions of tasks using such technologies within few seconds in the most efficient ways. However, since technologies became smarter, we have shown the tendency to substitute our intellectual abilities with technologies and let them complete all the work for us. As technological advancement is speeding up exponentially, they are rather coming after us and turning into a potential threat to humanity. Hence, all the efforts to create better, faster, and smarter technology are, in fact, leading humans to retrogression and even downfall. 

Since robots were introduced to the world, many people have expected to obtain a greatly enhanced quality of life because robots can relieve humans from their manual labors. For this reason, developing robots that are intelligent enough to act like humans became the ultimate goal of today’s technological advancement. That is, scientists and researchers have been making every effort to develop artificial intelligence (AI) as close to human intelligence as possible. However, countless renowned scientists, who have opposing viewpoints to developing artificial intelligence, “have warned of the urgent significant of AI” (Mannino et al. 3). In fact, we are already living in the world of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence already has reached deeply around us that we no longer can sustain the current level of development without it. For example, Siri in iPhone can be the nearest existing artificial intelligence to us. Siri brings up an enormous amount of information by simply asking for it. With the current technology, however, it is somewhat a relief to realize that Siri still has a long way ahead to achieve anything like human intelligence. Yet, artificially intelligent machines including Siri, continue to become more intelligent and perfect as the technological advancement progresses. For now, “these artificially intelligent machines are pretty cute and innocent, but as they are given more power in society, these machines may not take long to spiral out of control” (Bilton). Many artificial intelligence experts would agree that “humans will eventually create an artificial intelligence that can think beyond our own capacities” (Luckerson). Once we reach to this moment, artificial intelligence can soon be unstoppable, and the world will eventually be a catastrophe. According to Stephen Hawking, the world-renowned physicist, “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race,” Hawking told the BBC during the interview that “it would take off on its own and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, could not compete and would be superseded.” He has been voicing this apocalyptic view of artificial intelligence for a while. Since Hawking suffers from neurodegenerative disease, he is only able to communicate by using an innovative technology that involves the basic form of artificial intelligence. He is already dependent on the intelligent machine, thus this allowed him to critically comprehend how artificial intelligence could influence humanity, especially in the pessimistic way. Along with Stephan Hawking, Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, emphasized his idea at a conference at MIT that improving artificial intelligence shows no difference from “summoning the demon,” and that artificial intelligence will be the human’s biggest existential threat (Luckerson). Musk especially feared AI’s incredible processing powers compared to human’s. Such computers can communicate “a trillion bits per second,” while humans, who only communicate by typing with ten fingers and speaking verbally, can do about ten bits per second (Kharpal). For this reason, when artificial intelligence becomes widespread, he believes that humans will be useless, which is one of the greatest threats to humanity posed by artificial intelligence (Kharpal). That is why many scientists are very concerned over apocalyptic scenarios with artificial intelligence.

Unfortunately, most people do not take those risks seriously and only look at the advantages of artificial intelligence. They believe that the fully developed artificial intelligence would bring a utopia as their physical labors and simple tasks will be automated by artificially intelligent machines. In fact, the Google Driverless Car has been invented, which can be driven completely by autonomous AI algorithms (Mannino et al. 4). Since millions of people die due to traffic accidents exclusively caused by human errors, this driverless car assures higher safety than cars driven by humans. In the same context, “the fact that a current AI can make more accurate medical diagnoses than human doctors may seem surprising at first, but it has long been recognized that statistical inferences are superior to clinical judgements by human experts in most cases” (Mannino et al. 4). This implies that the influence of artificial intelligence in the medical field would lead to saving more human lives by accurately diagnosing patient’s diseases. Assuring higher safety and saving more human lives is undoubtedly a great advantage of artificial intelligence, and this should be one of the main purposes of developing artificial intelligence; to protect and save humans. 

Although it is developed as an assistant of humans, it is only a matter of time for artificial intelligence to be turned into human’s enemy. Since artificial intelligence can operate a million times faster than human intelligence, they may have superior computational architectures and learning algorithms that humans can never follow (Bostrom 2). Furthermore, artificial intellects can be duplicated much easier than biological intellects, so a new copy of artificial intelligence can start its new life with the full knowledge accumulated by its predecessors (Bostrom 2). This implies that artificial intelligence can be turned into “‘superintelligence’: a general intelligence that vastly outperforms the best human brains in every significant cognitive domain” (Bostrom 2). Once artificial intelligence reaches this moment, it will naturally think as if it owns the Earth, just like humans, and start to dominate the Earth. AIs themselves will also began to create a new form of technology that will outperform their capabilities. At this point, artificial intelligence is no longer our assistant for the better, rather it will substitute itself with humans and use them for assistance.

Some neuroscientists disagree with the idea of artificially intelligent robots having consciousness like humans. Although they acknowledge that there are concerns about the future with artificial intelligence, they claim that “these scenarios are categorically different from ones in which machines decide to turn on us, defeat us, make us their slaves, or exterminate us” (Azarian). Artificial intelligence requires a mind to intentionally behave. In order for intentionality to arise, artificial intelligence has to be able to possess certain beliefs, desires, and motivations (Azarian). Under these conditions, this type of AI is referred as “Strong Artificial Intelligence,” which can possess all the ranges of human cognitive abilities (Azarian). On the other hand, “Weak Artificial Intelligence” is known as robots that are only programmed by humans with certain algorithms. Thus, Weak AI can never have conscious states nor subjective awareness. In fact, all the current artificial intelligence devices today are Weak AI. “They all reveal themselves to be as motiveless as the common pocket calculator” (Azarian). They function only when computers give certain commands to Weak AI. This is because brains and computers function very differently. Both can operate computation, but only brains can understand. For this reason, neuroscientists argue that bringing Strong AI to reality is hardly possible because there is a lot of technological obstacles to overcome to reach that point. Furthermore, since brains and computers are different, they also claim that consciousness is only a biological phenomenon. “Brains contain a host of analogue cellular and molecular processes, biochemical reactions, electrostatic forces, global synchronized neuron firing at specific frequencies, and unique structural and functional connections with countless feedback loops” (Azarian). Even if computers can create its own digital consciousness, a physical brain involves much more complex communicating signals with neurons than a computer, thus the process can never be the same. Although significant increase in computer’s overall performances, “we are no closer [to Strong Artificial Intelligence] than before” (Azarian). Hence, many neuroscientists and researchers argue that artificial intelligence dominating the entire world is merely a fanciful fantasy.

What makes these scientists difficult to comprehend the urgency of artificial intelligence is that they all analyze it through their limited perspectives. They anthropomorphize artificial intelligence and predict that robots must have a biological brain or consciousness to think, exactly like what humans need to think. In addition, humans are built in a way that they cannot grasp a substance that surpasses human intellect. That is, no one is able to realize how artificial intelligence will look or act like in the future, and this never suggests that artificial intelligence will be like us either. It may bring entirely new perceptions beyond human abilities. It may think without a brain or consciousness. It may start to create smarter machines like superintelligence. This is why many scientists fear the development of artificial intelligence. Paul Ford, a writer and computer programmer, presents Bostrom’s interesting thought experiment about how the future with artificial intelligence will look like:

Imagine a machine that we might call a “paper-clip maximizer” −that is, a machine programmed to make as many paper clips as possible. Now imagine that this machine somehow became incredibly intelligent. Given its goals, it might then decide to create new, more efficient paper-clip-manufacturing machines−until, King Midas style, it had converted essentially everything to paper clips. 

This breed of artificial intelligence will do whatever it takes to achieve its goal, producing as many paper clips as possible. This machine may somehow decide to check its work and make sure it counted correctly as it will become smarter (Ford). Then, it may eventually end up creating a new machine that also produces paper clips to enhance the efficiency in making paper clips, even though it was carefully programmed beforehand. Through this thought experiment, Ford suggests a possibility that even carefully designed algorithms and programs may fail to restrain extreme machine intelligence (Ford). 

According to the article published by Nick Bilton, James Barrat, an author of Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era, also believes that “we humans steer the future not because we are the strongest beings on the planet, or the fastest, but because we are the smartest, so when there is something smarter than us on the planet, it will rule over us on the planet.” As humans continue to build new systems that are as intelligent as humans, smarter machines will be introduced, and soon the moment when artificial intelligence exceeds human capabilities will come. As a result, “artificial intelligence will be the ultimate intellectual version of us” in the future and will own its dominant position on Earth (Bilton). This will be the end of Human Era. 

Artificial intelligence has already shown its incredible abilities that outperform human abilities. Many computer scientists have started to compare its “artificial brain” with human intelligence in its performances. In particular, the ability of artificial intelligence to operate complex calculations has been extensively tested. For example, IBM, a computer manufacturing company, invented the computer Deep Blue and tested its performance in chess. However, at first, it was unsuccessful as Deep Blue lost to many chess masters (“Deep Blue”). Over time, computer scientists gathered data of moves done by each piece that gave the highest probabilities of winning. As a result, Deep Blue finally beat the world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997 (Mannino et al. 3). This was an astonishing result because no one believed that the computer could beat humans in the complex, strategic, and mental game of chess. With this success, IBM launched a new project, which was “building a computer that could beat the champions at a more complicated game, Jeopardy!” (“Deep Blue”). It is an American television show that features a quiz competition. It seemed impossible for computers to beat humans in language-based and knowledge-based quiz game. However, the machine, named Watson, emerged in 2011, defeating “two of the all-time most successful human players of the game and beat them in front of millions of television viewers” (“Deep Blue”). These contests not only had a profound impact on computer science and artificial intelligence, but also demonstrated that breaking the limits between machine and man is possible.

In the same context, another shocking match between man and machine took place in March 2016. It was match of Lee Sedol versus AlphaGo in the most complex board game go (incomparably more complex than chess). AlphaGo is artificial intelligence developed by DeepMind, a British artificial intelligence company, specially designed for playing the game of go. When the match was announced, Lee Sedol, the world champion go player, confidently declared that “he will sweep the games convincingly five to zero” (Room). There was no single chance that artificial intelligence can beat the top go player because the sets of go moves possible are nearly the same as the numbers of atoms in the universe. Furthermore, the definition of a good go player is not limited to skills and techniques, but involves intuition, creativity, experience, and spirit, all of which artificial intelligence can never simulate such human elements (Room). Despite this, AlphaGo easily led the game and defeated Lee Sedol the first three games, which brought the world a shock. The level of AlphaGo’s calculations and strategies exceedingly surpassed the human abilities. Fortunately, Lee Sedol took the fourth game with “seventy-eighth God’s move,” but the match of the century eventually ended AlphaGo winning four to one. AlphaGo’s artificial intelligence was so unbelievable that Lee Sedol winning one game was thought to be a miracle. AlphaGo truly demonstrated that the rate of artificial intelligence becoming smarter has increased exponentially. Although current artificial intelligence does not seem to have a mind yet, it has proven that its capabilities and intellects are already far better than human’s. 

Today we are already witnessing the wide-spread of artificial intelligence with surprising potentials. In economic perspective, this technological advancement, especially artificial intelligence, is a significant success that will allow more accurate and quicker task processing that can be used for medical and military purposes. Also, it promises heavenly quality of life as it will tackle household chores for us and provide autonomous transportations. However, it is crucial to recognize that the future of artificial intelligence is merely an anticipation. Artificial intelligence may bring a utopia, but it may also be an attempt to open Pandora’s box, releasing all the threats and risks to humans. No one knows the future. 

Unfortunately, the current trend of developing new technologies tends to be focused on producing new features as fast as possible in order to be successful than others. This unfavorable condition increases the risk of missing crucial factors in technological uses and losing the control of artificial intelligence. Hence, all the concerns and threats must be carefully considered to prevent all of us from opening Pandora’s box. It is in our own hands that will turn artificial intelligence into our best assistant or fearful adversary.
