Is AI an Existential Threat To Humanity?

It’s more complicated than you may think. Many people answer it bit straightforward ‘YES’ or ‘NO’. But the facts are, questions as controversial as this, are neither straightforward nor are their answers.

People often forget that Artificial Intelligence is Artificial. The Artificial, is generally a simulation of the Natural, where the natural is the original and the Artificial an imitation. Though, the Artificial can be better than the Natural in particular qualities.

Artificial Intelligence is attempts to stimulate Human Intelligence. It’s pretty much like augmented reality, an area where we attempt to create fake realities that looks as real as real. But, in spite of this, an imitation is an imitation and a stimulation a stimulation.

So far, many things have been identified as existential threats to humanity, some of which are:

• A major asteroid hitting Earth
• Volcanic erruption
• Extreme climate change
• Natural disasters e.g Bulbul cyclone in Bengal
• Nuclear war resulting to Nuclear winter
• Natural or Genetically engineered pandemic

Artificial Intelligence is an existential threat to humanity, however, that doesn’t mean the possibility of Artificial Intelligence destroying humanity is inevitable.

There is one reason why some people stress that AI is dangerous, and yet, they keep deploying it’s usage and funding it’s development. And the one reason is, they think we can manage the risk posed by Artificial Intelligence, particularly through regulations.