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The Bridge: AI is apparently going rogue (already) – leading many people to wonder whether the accelerated pace of the tech is…well…safe. Some scientists are warning that AI might want to annihilate human life, and others are pointing to a very different view of the end of the world.
Exterminate all humans! 💥🔫🤖
Ready for some nightmare fuel? Here’s a double dose, brought to you by your friendly neighborhood AI. The Last Selfies on Earth, conjured up by our friend Dall-E the uncomfortable robo-painter, shows an apocalyptic hellscape where fire rains from the sky and humanity is reduced to bloody cinders. The images aren’t for the faint of heart – but it seems to be what AI predicts for the end of the world.
Here’s your second helping: Loab, a horrific and haunting image of a woman that was evidently discovered completely by accident by – you guessed it – messing around with Artificial Intelligence. Loab became an instant online urban legend, much like Slenderman and Siren Head did. The key difference is the method of their creation. The latter two were “born” of human storytellers, artists and their respective communities. Loab was just a freak accident, a glitch in the AI, and she took on a frightening life of her own.
And that, dear readers, is exactly how AI might destroy the planet.
A Very Different Apocalypse 🤯
The argument that robots might destroy humanity is not a new one – James Cameron imagined the Terminator, and way before that, sci-fi authors like Harlan Ellison and Isaac Asimov wrote about a bleak vision of the future where supercomputers annihilate all life. The Paperclip Maximizer is an easy-to-understand thought experiment about an Artificial General Intelligence, essentially a smart machine built to create paper clips, that through no malice or incompetence will eventually crowd out humanity in an attempt to achieve its goal.
Obviously young people are living in this world of technological proliferation, and are being cautioned to proceed carefully. Scientists have recently published a paper explaining that this existential threat to humanity is no longer just possible, but likely.
Big yikes! 😬😬😬
In a weird way, Z-llennials are already facing an uphill battle against AI – algorithms are king in social media, and much of the endless scrolling taking place is a direct result of this predatory practice. The light at the end of the tunnel? They seem to know it. And we’ll see the results of this increasing awareness in the coming years with how hard the young gens fight back against their robot overlords.
