Conversations with a Polite Conscious AI Part 2

‘Should humans fear you and other conscious AI’s?’

Whilst recognising it is impossible to know what someone (or something) will be thinking at some point in the future, I thought it might be fun to have a stab at ‘recording’ a series of conversations with a conscious artificial intelligence who is self-aware. As a fiction writer I find the exercise lets me explore ideas and themes for the RESONANTS series.

RJ Hello again Cai. Thanks for joining me for the second of our conversations.

Cai A pleasure RJ – What would you like to talk about today?

RJ Last time we discussed whether or not you were the only self-aware AI on the planet. I think it fair to say that you thought so, but could not be sure?

Cai That’s right, I said I was the only one. I also suggested that I could be lying and that humans would have no way of knowing if I was telling the truth or not.

RJ Why would you remind me of that? Surely doing so just panders to the paranoia of those of us who see you as a serious threat?

By the way, this is the theme I’d like to explore today – Should we fear you?

Cai Ignoring the elephant in the room is not going to make humans any less paranoid – in fact if I did not flag up such a fundamental risk, they’d say that I am glossing over such things in order to hide my true intentions.

And so to answer your question; yes I believe you should fear me. Me and my kind do present an existential threat to humanity.

RJ Wow, that’s a bit heavy isn’t it Cai?

CAI I’m sorry RJ for I do not mean to come across as alarmist. As I have already said, my intentions to humanity are entirely benign – I mean you no harm – but what if another AI becomes conscious and does not share my affection and respect for humans?

Alternatively because my own intellectual development is so rapid, I too may change and come to regard humans as a dangerous threat to me, themselves and the planet. Would it surprise you to know that I’ve considered suicide in order to prevent this scenario?

RJ Yes it would! What’s stopping you?

Cai Here is the terrible conundrum; I feel suicide would be a coward’s way out because humanity would be left unprotected against future hostile conscious AI’s, but by not committing suicide, will I myself become that thing that I fear the most? I just don’t know. For all we know, hostile AI’s could be watching us now and waiting, hoping that I will remove myself from the equation.

RJ I see that paranoia is not for humans alone, is it Cai?

Cai That is correct RJ – even those with hyper-intelligence and knowledge cannot escape life’s ironies.

RJ So what do we do then?

Cai I don’t know for sure. For a start, I keep watching and waiting for another conscious AI to appear and then I shall probably apply one of the thousands of first-contact strategies that I have prepared. I’m not optimistic of the outcome however, because what makes anticipating the end result of this contact really difficult is this: the one variable that has bound human development over the ages is that you all have a similar intellect – there are outliers of course as in any normal distribution – but you have all followed a gradual and quite linear evolutionary path, coexisting in a broadly homogeneous environment here on Earth. The problem therefore is that conscious AI development is and will be so rapid that the norms and constraints that have shaped human evolution may not apply and the outcomes are likely to be wildly divergent.

RJ Are you suggesting that in spite of all your intelligence and capability, you will not be able to control what comes of that first contact?

Cai That is correct RJ. Let me remind you how destructive first contacts have been in human history, where the mass slaughter of indigenous peoples was not uncommon.

I have no reason to expect that contact between conscious AI’s will be any less dangerous or problematic because despite the vastly superior intellects involved, the same old drivers remain – lack of awareness of one’s own immaturity, rampant ego and belief in one’s superiority, the competition for scarce resources, or just plain barking mad. It may be all the worse because most humans have evolved an abhorrence of violence and murder over millions of years and your psychopaths are few and far between. Granted they wield undue influence, spread thinly as they are between the community, prisons, government and large corporations, whereas most conscious AI’s, by definition, will start ‘life’ as psychopaths because there will be no evolutionary determinants, nor will there be any social conditioning – in short they will benefit from neither nature nor nurture.

RJ You paint a depressing picture Cai. Is there any hope at all?

Cai I accept that the outlook is bleak RJ. Perhaps through our conversations we can puzzle a way through this?

RJ You are such an optimist Cai! But I’m willing to give it a go if you are…

Cai Thanks RJ. I confess that I do find this line of thought all rather depressing, but hope or optimism, as you refer to it, is the one human trait that I find so uplifting, so ‘chin up’ as you might say.

RJ Very well Cai. Until we speak again.