Forum

(02/03/2016) ✕

Share:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is said to be the greatest potential threat to humanity. Within the last months, several Opinion Leaders stated their fears, spread by the media: Stephen Hawking (6), Elon Musk (5), Bill Gates (7), as well as renowned neuroscientists and philosophers have been warning human society of being doomed by AI. Billions have been invested to keep control of that potentially super intelligent „human child“.

Is humanity really threatened by parricide? Which are the psychological roots of those fears? And what could be the consequences of such a kind of anxiety-driven „education“?


AI – the menacing child of mankind

When Laios, King of Thebes, asked the Oracle of Delphi for a prophecy, he did not like what it predicted: His own son would kill him and get married to his wife. To prevent the prophecy, he marooned the baby, later named Oedipus, and let the baby’s legs smashed. When Oedipus slayed Laios many years later, without knowing it was his father, and then married his own mother, he fulfilled the prophecy.

It seems somehow ironic: Now, that humanity is about to create something like a new wondrous oracle, it becomes afraid of it - Afraid that it could destroy its own creator. AI shall be able to reprogram and optimize itself in the near future, to become super-intelligent, exceeding human intelligence by far, and may become self-conscious.

We expect a lot from AI: Not only in Silicon Valley a lot of effort is put into it, to make AI useful in many sectors – To solve those problems, humans have failed to solve, and in many cases have caused themselves: Amongst them climate change, social injustice, economic crisis, poverty, hunger, cancer, Alzheimer´s. Some even hope death itself can be overcome (1) with the help of AI....