Will AI Lead Humanity To Extinction Or A New Evolutionary Stage

Sam Altman, in an interview with Y Combinator, claimed that AGI could be achieved by 2025. The creator of ChatGPT, a technology used by global brands, like Apple and Microsoft, says things were moving faster than expected and that the path to AGI was "basically clear". Does this mean AI could surpass human control in the near future? 

To me, it seems now, more likely than ever, the chances of AI taking over humanity in the next iteration are 50%. However, the bigger question is - How can we use AI to amplify humanity's virtues, instead of its vices, as we have seen happening with technology in the past?

Human beings are an incredibly complex species on this planet! Our ambitions are full of contradictions, combining the capacity for great adventures, generosity, and kindness, with greater tendencies towards vanity, greed, and competitive aggression. Unfortunately, much of our creativity and innovation is often used in ways that harm the very fabric of humanity, our utopian, compassionate, and constructive DNA.

Historically speaking, humans have had extraordinary capabilities to create empires and change the face of our planet Earth, and we have been able to achieve that in the most profound and irreversible ways. Among our greatest achievements is Artificial Intelligence, to the level where we are redefining the boundaries of what is possible. 

With the introduction of AGI, humanity could be entering an entirely new era, shaped by the most advanced creation we have ever brought into existence.

The questions we face now as a species are:

• Is our creation leading us towards extinction?
• Are we doing enough to manage the narrative and ethics of our AI-driven metaverse?

The Human AI Crossroads 

AI is, without doubt, humanity’s most advanced creation, working alongside the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It drives the development of smart cities and a society undergoing revolutionary changes, pushing humanity further than in 30,000 years of Homo sapiens evolution. However, as we stand on the edge of this transformative era, two very different futures lie ahead:

• The highway of evolution: A path to an evolutionary co-existence of humans and machines. One that merges human abilities with AI; where humanity could overcome current limitations and achieve extraordinary capabilities with enhanced decision-making, increased automation, and major technological breakthroughs. It is a future vision of collaboration and progress, where AI works alongside humans to create a better world.

As of present day, we have not been able to achieve this, but it is something that could potentially be realised in the longer term.

• A disastrous path where AI amplifies the worst of humanity: The one that is inspired from the myths of Icarus and Pandora Box, but with larger, even unimagined scale impact. 

I asked the most pressing question to the Open AI GPT-4o:

How can humans and AI co-exist and evolve together?

The Open AI chat answered this:

“Humans and AI can co-exist and evolve together by fostering a symbiotic relationship where AI amplifies human capabilities while humans provide ethical guidance, creativity, and emotional intelligence. This collaboration thrives on clear boundaries, mutual trust, and continuous education, ensuring humans remain decision-makers while AI handles complex data-driven tasks. By integrating AI responsibly into industries, enhancing digital literacy, and addressing ethical concerns, we can create a future where AI empowers humanity to solve global challenges, innovate sustainably, and thrive in a rapidly evolving world.”

No wonder, we are moving to an emergent AI sentient data driven technology. The way the Open AI answered me “fostering a symbiotic relationship”. 

This AI is the second form of artificial intelligence (AI), which is now progressing fast to become the Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). This current iteration of AI is data-driven and has the ability to learn and evolve on its own. Most of our social media platforms are already using some of these software and solutions. At the moment Emergent AI technologies can be used in multiple ways, such as analysing data, making decisions, and automating tasks. Emergent AI is capable of making decisions and taking action autonomously and can be used to develop new technologies and applications.

The big elephant in the room is how humans can cope with this evolution of humanity. Special as humanity is going through a digital overdose and digital obesity. To quote futurist Gerd Leonhard,

"People are already escaping reality with their mobile phones and social media. They might be leading very miserable lives in reality, but in digital life, they might interact with anyone they want. That for me is a worrisome trench because it is dehumanisation. And Metaverse could be that place where all of this becomes normal. The best deal is that we can use some of the awesome technology to live better and healthier, and reach happier things and express ourselves better."

The human brain is a unique differentiator - It is what has made humanity the leading species in the earth planet ecosystem. It is the most complex and natural thinking machine. So much so, that in the scale of thousands of years of evolution, it has attained a unique intellectual property. The challenge now, however, is as we grow our evolutionary new brains with AI are these new augmentation becoming part of us. Otherwise, like so many wild animals moving toward extinction, human species will be vulnerable to extinction at the hands of its own creation - the superintelligent machines.

Towards a new paradigm

The present day humans, so far, have been designed in slow biological evolution. As humanity enters the era of advanced artificial intelligence - the AGI - humans will need to re-design themselves at an ever increasing rate. Human engineering, as we know it, will redesign the very fabric of humanity, advancing in parallel with innovations in AI and robotics.

But what technologies will facilitate this shift?

Innovations in AI with the integration of technologies like spatial computing, IoT, and sensors are increasingly being used to create entire digital twins, avatars of all of us, our cities and our society.

Humanity, on the other hand, has to understand how this imagination of the world around and AI can walk side by side. What is needed in this case is a clear human vision, passionate technology desire, and sufficient data to expand our human will and augment human design engineering.

From the inception of humanity, imagination has carried us to visible and invisible worlds we could never visit before, even without the need to go nowhere!

AI, now, has changed the rules of the game. Imagination is no longer a privilege of the human mind. 

Imagination has a direct application of a magic delivery: guessing the representation of a subject in a different way, or in other words, translating an image from one representation to another. AI has to serve imagination, not the other way around. Edge computational AI is augmenting data and the limits of humanity & imagination.

But with imagination, we are facing major challenges in our technological iterations. Special when it comes to our 4IR challenges and risks we face now:

• automation;
• Cybersecurity;
• Ethics;
• Psychological;
• Fake News;
• Bias;
• Privacy;
• Bio manipulation;
• Singularity new human-machine evolution.