The Third Option
The other day I came across an interesting blog posting on Scientific American, one of my favorite places for ideas and scientific updates.
Just the title, Our Final Invention: Is AI the Defining Issue for Humanity? intrigued me, and I had to take a closer look. This turned out to be a book review for a book by James Barrat called Our Final Invention. I haven’t read the book yet, but it’s now on my short list.
The gist of the book is that it looks at what futurists revfer to as The Singularity. For those who are not familiar with the concept, the technological singularity is that point where artificial intelligence exceeds human intelligence. The date for this event is typically placed around 2050, though a few minutes surfing through my cable TV channels is enough to make me think we may be much closer.
A major theme of the review (it’s not overly technical, give it a read) is that when we reach the point where the technological singularity occurs, there are two possible outcomes: either we have programmed the AI to serve us and be our slaves (e.g. Issac Asimov and his robot series) or they turn against us and wage war against their oppressors, as in Terminator and Battlestar Gallactica.
Frankly, if they really do become smarter than us, I suspect the first outcome is highly unlikely–but should that happen, I recommend that the first place we send these altruistic einsteins has to be Washington D.C.
What I found most interesting, though, is that they didn’t realize there is a third possible outcome–which is the underlying premise to my upcoming novel, The Archivist. Sorry, no spoilers. You’ll have to wait for it to be published.