AI dystopia

In Ridley Scott’s “Alien: Covenant (2017),” artificial intelligence horrifies audiences more than aliens living in human host bodies. AI in the movie thinks about creation and decides to become a creator of life at the sacrifice of human beings.

It is not alone in talking about a doomsday scenario that would bring in by AI. While Terminator (1984), Matrix (1999) and I, Robot (2004) described the threats of AI with some fun with actions, Ex Machina (2015) is more serious about the negative effects of AI. Though it was depicted as a computer or robot, “2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)” or “Westworld (1973)” described the rebellion by AI starting from about 50 years ago.

Facebook’s AI chatbots were suspended after they talked to each other using grammar that people could not understand because AI could exclude human beings in communication. If it is true, AI might talk and learn with a language that humans cannot understand and evolve by itself. It is an irony that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is optimistic about AI.

“If you're not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea. In the end, the machines will win," Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter on Saturday. “Everything that can pose a threat to the general public (automobile, plane, food and medication, etc.) is subject to regulation. So is AI.” It is also worth noting Professor Yuval Noah Harari at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said in a press conference in Korea last month, “AI can leave billions of people jobless and make one of the most unequal worlds in history,” with a possibility that AI might grant power in the hands of only a few people. AI dystopia might be much closer than you might think.