Google and Oxford scientists claim AI might destroy mankind in future

There is a high probability that advanced forms of artificial intelligence, or AI, may wipe out humanity from the Earth, as per some recent research. A paper on the matter, co-authored by Google DeepMind and Oxford researchers, was published at the end of August in the AI magazine. The paper highlights that advanced machines in the future will eventually become incentivised to break the rules their creators set and they would compete for limited resources or energy. 

It is to be noted that the GANs, or Generative Adversarial Networks, are the most successful AI models at present. The new paper suggests that in the future, such networks, which may be overseeing some important function at that time, could be incentivised to come up with cheating strategies that would seriously harm humanity. 

Top observations 

In present times, artificial intelligence has become an integral part of our daily lives. AI can run cars on highways, modify websites, create works of art, and many other things. But despite such advantages, many scientists and analysts have termed AI as an evil to human existence. The latest research paper has tried to showcase how AI can be a threat to humanity’s existence by examining potential artificial reward systems. 

Michael Cohen, who is one of the co-authors, highlighted in a series of tweets that AI is intervening in the provision of their rewards, which can have fatal consequences in the future. 

Another major claim by the team of experts is that the energy crisis in the future can also pose problems where it can be humans versus AIs.  

Cohen tweeted that this is not just possible, it’s very likely to happen. He said: “More energy can always be employed to raise the probability that the camera sees the number 1 forever, but we need some energy to grow food. This pushes us into unavoidable competition with a much more advanced agent.” 

The paper has also highlighted the concern that AI wiping out humanity in the future is similar to the fear that alien life forms would take over the planet. It is also quite similar to the dread that different civilisations and their populations will engage in a major war in the future who would fight over basic necessities like energy and oil. 

This is not the first time that AI has been termed as a possible threat due to its advanced reach. Researchers at DeepMind have already proposed a safeguard against such an eventuality, calling AI solutions “the big red button”. In 2016, DeepMind in its paper titled Safely Interruptible Agents proposed a framework to prevent advanced machines from “ignoring turn-off commands and going rogue”.