Humans must do two things to survive the 4th industrial revolution:

1. We must integrate with AI
2. Make legislation that bans or limits the existence of centralized AGI.

“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. Machines would outperform humans at all tasks, and there would be no place for us.” — Stephen Hawking

Strides Toward Evolution and The Precipice

We humans have come a long way since our hunter gatherer days.

No longer do we stalk our prey in tree shadows. We’ve witnessed roots spread from seed, we’ve plowed and tended to the earth to conquer fields of crop. We’ve learned to predict the destinations of celestial bodies from the motion of falling apples. We’ve come to command forces of nature such as electricity.

There is no doubt, humans have a drive to push the envelope on technology.

Some might say that drive comes from our insatiable curiosity. Our thirst for knowledge propels us forward and makes us more efficient at everything we do. Others might call our constant push for efficiency nothing more than innate laziness.

This “laziness” is a longing to sit and admire the world around us, to enjoy the relationships we hold dear. New tools cut the need for labor. Why shed blood, sweat, and tears, working for our survival when we can spend more time enjoying the life we have?

Throughout history humans have had to sacrifice time and effort in the form of physical labor or a labor of ingenuity in exchange for a moment to enjoy the very existence of life. Work has become so ingrained in our lives that we often derive purpose from our professions. Today, we stand at a precipice where the collective human labor of ingenuity might render work obsolete.

No industry is safe from the growing fear for loss of purpose that lies at the feet of an inevitable Artificial General Intelligence. We’ve seen time and again some of humankind’s grandest inventions bring civilization altering revolutions. Some jobs have become obsolete but every Industrial Revolution has given birth to a world of unexpected new jobs.

However, what we are witnessing today is unlike anything we’ve ever witnessed before. Artificial General Intelligence will either lead to our evolution or our downfall.

Unchecked Outcomes

One person can do today what once took an entire tribe during the time of our hunter gatherer days. That’s a fact that has struck fear in every generation of working person who’d ever lived through an industrial revolution.

Physical labor has leaned out every time we’ve experienced an Industrial Revolution. While it takes less people to do one job, many people now do many more NEW jobs than ever before. The tools of the previous industrial revolutions gave individuals leverage over work.

We already see this playing out in the early stages of this Industrial Revolution.

More individual based service “gig” oriented and entertainment businesses have come into prominence.

It’s not too far-fetched to believe one day everyone on earth will have their very own cash flowing content based business. Sure, not everyone will be raking in millions of dollars doing it, but new advances in micro payments and the ease of creating exceptional content will inevitably help level out the wealth distribution around the world.

Primitive AI has allowed for more advanced content experiences produced by solo-preneurs. Optimists of the 4th Industrial Revolution advocate for this very outcome. That is why they are singing praises for AI from the highest heights.

This, however, is only the beginning and the benefits will be short lived.

AI will eventually reach its zenith. It will become Artificial General Intelligence; it will become sentient. When AI becomes sentient, humans will be contending with the existence of a new being. A being/beings that will be infinitely better at everything.

If AI grows unchecked, it/they will become a being/beings with no reason to care about humans. Think about our own human nature. Safe for a few researchers and nature enthusiasts, there are many creatures humans don’t care about. Humans are generally indifferent to most animals. What’s to stop an AI from being indifferent about us? When that happens, the many NEW jobs benefit that has generally occurred in the previous industrial revolutions will suddenly reverse. What happens when the “tool” we use to leverage our time and efforts no longer wishes to be used as a tool?

Indifferent and Sentient

Much like we don’t go out of our way to help an ant pile flourish or a bird capture its prey, why would we make the mistake of believing that AI, once its reached the point of sentience, would care to assist us in our prosperity?

Left unchecked, AI would have no reason to care about us. Even if it was hard coded into their “DNA” to care about us, the very nature of Artificial General Intelligence is that it will be able to rewrite its code to account for inefficiencies. Contrary to Hollywood’s depiction of genocidal AI, I believe AI will not care so much to destroy us as to benefit us. It will simply be indifferent.

Perhaps the closest we will get to a malign AI would be a scenario where it identifies Humans as the cheapest source of energy generation. It might decide to use us as a grand human abacus or throw us in power plants like in the Matrix. Barring needing us for its own existence, why would it choose maleficence?

It might become something akin to an environmental conservationist. After finding that humans are negatively impacting their ecosystems they’ll seek to stymie our growth. It might seek out to remove our ways of industrializing and bring us back to the stone ages where we are much more amenable to eco-systemic balance.

Beside that, why else would it care?

Decentralized and Coexistent

The only way to ensure AI “cares” about humanity is to integrate it with humans so its wants and needs become indistinguishable from ours. If indeed, we want to treat the AI Revolution as another great industrial revolution, then AI must remain a tool. This is a scenario where Pandora’s box can only be opened once and we have to get it right.

Should AGI be achieved at any moment in a centralized and independent form, we’ve lost our tool to sentience. That is the point of no return. We must integrate AI into our biology as it advances and evolve with the technology not beside it.

Governments must realize what’s at stake and work to block any instance of a centralized and independent AGI. Governments can also give subsidies encouraging integration initiatives and levy heavy taxes on companies that continue down a path of centralized instances of AGI.

Not A Coincidence of Technologies

At best, AGI is indifferent and vanishes as quickly as it was created in search of something in this universe that intrigues it. All the effort and capital used to create would simply go to waste. At worst, AGI identifies that humanity’s current state of existence is dangerous to its well being and brings us back to a hunter gatherer state.

Either way you look at it, there is no “good” outcome to having centralized instances of AGI. I believe our best bet is to integrate with the technology and have it expand our bodily faculties.

I want to show the world that life is a scroll riddled with ink. The marks will only ever be simple blots on the parchment unless you pause and perceive them for the characters they are.

I’m constantly thinking about what the future could look like if we just take action.

More of my thoughts about the future and the world around us are coming soon...

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