Artificial intelligence is on the brink of becoming "superhuman" and could spell the end of mankind, a leading expert has warned.
Neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris believes there’s something “inherently dangerous” about being the second-smartest species on the planet.
He says that in the near future “most of what’s online could soon be fake” critically endangering how we choose our governments.
And, looking just a little further ahead, that AI “could ultimately destroy us”.
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In a decade or so, Sam predicts new technology could make humans redundant and lead to global chaos.
He says that even the existing tools we have will be enough to cause civilisation to collapse.
“I'm worried that life could become unlivable in the near term before we even get [true AI],” he told the Diary of a CEO Podcast. .
“I'm just worried about the the misuses of narrow AI in the meantime… just take the current level of AI we have.
“We’ve got Chat GPT4. I think within the next 12 months or two years – whatever GPT 5 is we're going to be in the presence of something where most of what's online that purports to the information could soon be fake.”
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Sam added that almost all experts agree that “we will ultimately build artificial general intelligence that will be superhuman in its capacities”.
This would mean a thinking machine that can reason, imagine and perhaps most significantly invent new and better artificial intelligences.
“We will be in the presence of something smarter than we are …my intuition is that there is something inherently dangerous for the dumber party in that relationship," he continued.
Sam likens the rise of true, independent AI as something like an alien invasion, saying: “Just think of how you would feel if we got a communication from elsewhere in the galaxy and it was a message that we decoded and it said ‘people of Earth we will arrive on your lowly planet in 50 years, get ready’.”
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The fact that those aliens had spotted us – and were on their way here – would cause panic.
He went on: “If we received a communication from a species…just by by fact by the sheer fact that they were communicating with us in this way, we knew they were more competent and more powerful and more intelligent than we are and they're going to arrive…
“We would we would feel that we were on the threshold of the most momentous change in the history of of our species.”
According to Sam, the emergence of true AI is as important as that, but few people seem to be preparing for that event.
He added: “This is a relationship, an unavoidable relationship that's being foisted upon us.
“It's like a new creature is coming into the room, with its own capacities and now you're in this relationship and and one thing is absolutely certain: it is smarter than you.”
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