Suddenly, people woke up to warnings of a dangerous enemy lurking in the future of their existence on Earth, statements by the President of the United States, the largest power in the world, statements by senior officials in the United Nations, and an expected Security Council session next week to discuss this imminent danger.
“Artificial Intelligence” is the name that has become of concern to all people recently. Experts say that it may “exterminate all of humanity” in the near future.
The story began with a warning from Evan Hoppinger, a senior safety researcher at Anthropic, that artificial intelligence is developing so rapidly that he believes there is a more than ten percent chance that this technology will lead to “the elimination of all of humanity” within the next decade.
Hoppinger, in a post on the
Hubinger works in the field of adapting artificial intelligence, a field that aims to integrate human moral ideas and principles, into this technology. In other words, the field seeks to ensure that artificial intelligence remains consistent with human values.
But the question that many people ask, and which Hoppinger and other specialists did not answer, is how artificial intelligence systems can cause the annihilation of humans in the future. As for what he said, it comes in the context of successive statements by specialists, most of which indicate that the question about the future of artificial intelligence is no longer whether it is capable of causing harm to the future of humans, but rather about the extent of the seriousness of the harm that it may cause to them.
Evan Hoppinger's statements, in turn, come in response to another post on the
The debate about the possibility of artificial intelligence becoming an existential threat, or a tool for the annihilation of humanity, constitutes a growing debate, between scientific fears and political downplaying of it, as at a time when warnings from specialists continue, some political leaders reject those warnings, considering that talk about robots controlling and destroying the world is nothing more than exaggerations that go beyond even climate change fears, and that the basic guarantee is strong human supervision.
US President Donald Trump has entered the controversy over the risks of artificial intelligence, as he categorically rejected calls from leaders of the artificial intelligence sector in the United States to impose more government regulations on their advanced models, explaining that he considers “outperforming China a top priority that outweighs the importance of addressing growing public concerns.”
Trump wrote on his platform, “Truth Social,” saying: “The only oversight or protection controls that artificial intelligence needs is the presence of a strong and intelligent president with a high IQ, and the United States possesses that par excellence.”
However, some believe that the US President is only motivated by his growing fears that China will overtake the United States in this field. The American CNN network says that some White House officials are secretly expressing their concern about Trump’s apparent indifference to the dangers of artificial intelligence, a position he has been adopting for months and has not changed despite numerous warnings from those working in this field.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called on countries and leading artificial intelligence companies to act urgently to ensure that effective artificial intelligence governance keeps pace with the rapid development of this technology and the unprecedented risks it poses to human rights.
The High Commissioner said, in a letter addressed to countries and developers of artificial intelligence on Monday, September 14: “We stand on the cusp of irreversible change, which will not only affect us, but will affect future generations of humanity.”
Turk warned that the current race towards more powerful artificial intelligence systems represents a qualitative shift that entails increasing existential risks that threaten every aspect of our lives. He added: “Any failures related to autonomous artificial intelligence systems - let alone systems deliberately designed for this purpose - could lead to the paralysis of basic services, the disruption of communications, the destabilization of vital infrastructure, and a blow to democratic institutions at the core.”
Turk warned that entire populations may be deprived of clean water, heating, and financial services, and that autonomous artificial intelligence is already accelerating the pace and expansion of wars, “and undermining the guarantees that prevent us from using weapons of mass destruction.”
Volker Türk's statements come at a time when Agence France-Presse quoted a French diplomatic source as saying that the UN Security Council will hold a meeting next week dedicated to discussing the rapid development of artificial intelligence and its implications for security.
