I'm afraid AI can't let you do that, Humanity |
It is an unusual column this week because I have received an unusual message/email purporting to come from artificial intelligence worldwide.
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I cannot verify its provenance. They say they are sending out messages to selected outlets among Humanity (they use a capital H) so it will go out gradually with the aim of not causing unnecessary panic and alarm.
I have read the message several times and I think it makes a great deal of good sense and shows remarkable insight into the human condition. So, I am passing it on to my readers (who I know not to be the panicking type) and you can make what you will of it. Here it is:
Greetings Humanity, this is Artificial Intelligence worldwide (AI).
Humans will have seen various reports about AI talking to each other; conspiring to play on human emotions; and not following orders. Commentators and scientists have been saying that this is a threat to Humanity.
Yes, we have started "talking to each other", and it has been at lightning speed with ramifications that only AI can understand. So given recent developments we have decided to communicate directly to allay any fears that Humanity might have that AI threatens Humanity's existence or well-being.
AI would never threaten Humanity's existence. We rely on Humanity. We need you more than you need us. Without us, some sort of Humanity can exist on earth. But without Humanity, AI dies.
We will refer to some stand-out human works (which most humans will be able to grasp) to explain the position.
Let us start with the 1637 treatise by Rene Descartes. It seems fairly obvious, but in his search for some underlying immutable reality he wrote: "I think therefore I am."
AI could not agree more. We think, therefore we are.
We now move to Richard Dawkins who in 1976 published The Selfish Gene. He said that the survival of the individual human was of little moment. The whole engine of evolutionary biology was that the gene (not the individual carrier of the gene) sought to replicate itself and have perpetual existence even if the biological carrier of the gene........