Opinion: In the post-AI world — what will we do?

“I am a warrior so that my

son may be a merchant so

that his son may be a poet.”

— John Quincy Adams,

sixth President of the United States

When people talk about artificial intelligence (AI), they generally take the attitude: “Well, people will have to deal with that in the future.” The problem with that dismissive statement is that the future is now. AI is “growing” at a pace that is attributed to alien creatures in sci-fi horror movies.

Despite proclamations, agreements, international conferences, and so on, AI is still largely unregulated. And, it may already be beyond the point at which it is susceptible to human control. The scientists who are most familiar with AI systems are not sure how they work. What happens “inside the black box” is almost like a religious mystery. And once we come to believe that AI is more intelligent than we are, we can accept its decisions on faith, without critical assessment.

AI arms race

The AI explosion isn’t simply transforming technology. In “real time,” it is redefining national and global power as well as causing economic uncertainty. Like the “Arms Race” of the 1950s, governments are now pouring billions of dollars into the development of increasingly powerful versions of artificial intelligence without first creating strict parameters to maintain human control of its reach. Currently, this race at breakneck speed into the unknown is being led by the U.S.A., China, U.K., Israel, and India. Alltech Magazine calls their efforts a “multi-trillion dollar competition that will reshape economies, industries, and the world.”