Few days back, I happened to watch an American science fiction thriller film titled Extinction. Extinction was written by Spenser Cohen and Brad Kane and directed by Ben Young. It was released on 27th July 2018. The film features Peter who has these constant nightmares about alien invasion. These nightmares are beginning to threaten his family and work that he visits a psychiatric. There he discovers a patient who reveals to him that he is suffering from the same visions, prompting Peter to now believe that his dreams might be true after all. Soonest, they are attacked by invading spaceships that killed a good number of them excluding Peter and his family. Peter later discovers that the attackers are humans when one of them examined the face of his daughter. Peter’s wife Alice gets wounded and the human caught with Peter’s daughter volunteers to heal Alice his wife when it seemed all hope was lost. The story comes to a climax when the soldier reveals to Peter that Alice is a synthetic that is a product of artificial intelligence. To save Alice, she must get an alternate source of power which is Peter himself, showing that Peter himself is also a synthetic. In the movie, we see that the Peter and his synthetic brothers have succeeded in driving out all the humans to Mars for the past 50 years. The humans only came back to retrieve the planet that was theirs. The constant nightmares he has been having are only memories of the war that existed between the humans and the synthetics and how the synthetics drove out humans from the earth. In the film, we see that the synthetics wiped their memories of what happened so as to enable them live as humans. The movie ends with the family escaping the invasion by getting on an evacuation train presumably heading to a safer haven set up by robots that retained their memories.
Extinction triggers a pertinent question about the future of artificial intelligences in our planet. It imagines a world where man will be overthrown by artificial intelligences as a result of man’s inability to tolerate and coexist with these beings. My interest here is to add my voice to an already discussed issue that the emergence of human artificial intelligence can only cause more harm than the purposed good unless managed properly. I also wish to state here that studies in artificial intelligence must be guided by ethics and sound reason in order for it not to veer out of the track. Artificial intelligence (often called AI or machine intelligence) refers to machines that mimic cognitive functions that humans associate with other minds such as learning and problem solving. Humanized Ai as portrayed in the movie has the features of all types of competencies and is able to be self-conscious and self-aware in its interactions with others.
Artificial intelligence on a general plane is a significant milestone that has being achieved by science and technology. It has wide and varied positive effects on the society. It aids in medical diagnosis, search engines, online assistances and major achievements in the automotive industry where we now have the creation and evolution of self driving vehicles. Recently, Sophia the robot was created as one of the breakthroughs of artificial intelligence on February 2016. She imitates human gestures and facial appearances and is able to answer certain questions and make simple conversations on pre-defined topics like the weather.
Despite these positive achievements, AI researchers and producers are faced with how to manage the harm and dangers that arise from this. Stephen Hawking the physicist predicts a future that looms doom with the presence of the AI. He is of the view that the development of full human intelligence will supersede humans because of their capacities to redesign themselves at an ever increasing rate. A future of man where he finds himself incapable of meeting up with these AI will either annihilate man or turn man into a slave of his created works. Of course, when AI invades the future, there will be great decrease in the demand for human labor as human efforts will be replaced with machines with high capabilities. These robots can also be turned into weapons for wars and elimination of weaker nations. What’s more? Man will be faced with serious invasion of privacy and hacking of private information by these super machines as used by their users or the machines themselves. It is going to be a moment of anarchy and future shock (to use the words of Alvin Toffler.)
The solution does not lie in casting away the research and innovations in artificial intelligence. That will be stifling of creativity and the wonders of science and technology. There has to be a means of reaping the benefits of artificial intelligence while avoiding its pitfalls. The question that should be uppermost in the mind of the scientists is, how can artificial intelligence be managed and built in such a way that they do not pose a serious threat to the future of man. If we are to evade the prophecy of Hawking, then scientist cannot risk addressing this question. I therefore think if we are to salvage the future from a near “Extinction experience” then it is safest to provide an ethics that will guide researches in artificial intelligence. This ethics is necessary to prevent abuses and break in morality that arises from the use of AI. The government should take the lead in this.
Also, Scientists must not use the AI for negative, selfish purposes. There are more positive things one can do with them. AI can also be regulated by improving cyber security protections and input validation standards. Even human AIs like Sophia and other robotics should be monitored and their programming checked to see if they align with the promotion of human dignity, right reason and the principles of morality. It is possible to build and observe its behavior in simplified settings where they can be monitored or terminated when the need arises. God created the world and saw that it was all good (Gen 1:31) May the works of man not disfigure it but rather promote and enhance the beauty of creation.
thinkalong 