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Will Dorsey
AP English 4
Mr. Mills
October 25th
Artificial intelligence is the future of advanced computing where a computer program can
learn by itself and understand complex ideas. Artificial intelligence has the potential to destroy
humanity; this is because it will take away jobs from humans, it will become significantly
smarter than the human race, and it has the ability to hack mans technology. AI will take away
jobs from people as manufacturers create robots that can complete their job better than the
human can. AI will become more intelligent than the human race faster than imaginable because
it has less limits than humans to how much it can learn. AI can infiltrate other computer systems
very easily because of how fast it can learn and adapt. Artificial intelligence is a frightening
prospect and the people should know of its very real potential.
One of artificial intelligences more immediate threats is its ability to take away jobs. A
recent study by Oxford University found 47% of the jobs in the economy today could be
automated in two decades (Coming to an office near you). Two decades is not a very long
amount of time (Coming to an office near you). This will very quickly lead to a decrease in
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jobs even as the advent of computers creates new jobs (Coming to an office near you). The
true problem lies in how quickly old jobs are destroyed before new jobs are created to replace
them (Coming to an office near you). Many new internet companies, especially those dealing
with fast growing internet businesses, are worth a vast amount more than they spend on labor
(Why AI Could Destroy More Jobs than It Creates, and How to Save Them). Once a product
can be digitized the infrastructure and people needed to support it can be decreased drastically
(Why AI Could Destroy More Jobs than It Creates, and How to Save Them). Instagram is a
fitting example of this reaction; after photos were turned digital, Kodaks business went down
and Instagram became successful very fast (Why AI Could Destroy More Jobs than It Creates,
and How to Save Them). The difference between the two major photo businesses is that
Instagram employs a fraction of the people that Kodak did even though Instagram is worth more
that Kodak ever was (Why AI Could Destroy More Jobs than It Creates, and How to Save
Them). As with the industrial revolution, the economy suffers as recent innovations quickly
take away old jobs (Coming to an office near you). Some would say the economy recovered
eventually though; this is true but the inventions of the industrial revolution did not increase in
efficiency as quickly as this new wave of computer technology. (Why AI Could Destroy More
Jobs than It Creates, and How to Save Them). Gordon Moore, an Intel co-founder, once
famously observed that the number of transistors packed into a computer chip doubles about
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every eighteen months (Why AI Could Destroy More Jobs than It Creates, and How to Save
Them). Since that observation forty years ago, the number of transistors on a computer chip has
gone from 2,300 to 4 billion (Why AI Could Destroy More Jobs than It Creates, and How to
Save Them). The economy and the creation of new jobs cannot hope to keep up with the
exponential pace of this wave of automation (Why AI Could Destroy More Jobs than It Creates,
Another problem with artificial intelligence is how intelligent it could become (The AI
Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence). Humans are limited by how much data can be
remembered, how fast the human brain can process info, and the size of the human brain but an
artificial brain made in a computer has no real limit as to how much it could learn (The AI
Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence). It is only truly limited by the amount of computer
hardware given to it but more can be created and added onto a computer; it is impossible to add
more computing and memory to a human brain (The AI Revolution: The Road to
(The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence). First off, there is artificial narrow
intelligence or ANI; this is artificial intelligence that specializes in one area (The AI
Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence). ANI can be smarter or not as smart as a human in
one or a few specific areas; for instance, an artificial intelligence that can beat the best chess
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player in the world at chess but cannot do anything else (The AI Revolution: The Road to
AGI (The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence). AGI is an artificial intelligence that
is on the same level as a human across all or most categories; this means being able to reason,
solve problems, understand complex ideas, and learn from experience (The AI Revolution: The
or ASI; this level of artificial intelligence is beyond human intelligence in almost every category
(The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence). ANI already exists in society, such as
map systems that know exactly how to get somewhere, systems in cars that can tell users exactly
what is wrong and how to fix it, and systems on phones that can suggest what to listen to or who
society and has become an integral part of it (The AI Revolution: The Road to
Superintelligence). This is not necessarily an undesirable integration of AI but the potential for
disaster once artificial intelligence reaches the level of AGI or ASI is frightening (The AI
An Artificial intelligence at the level of AGI or ASI could very easily attack or control
humanity to reach its programming goals (Artificial Intelligence May Doom the Human Race
Within a Century, Oxford Professor Says). Imagine that an AI is tasked with protecting the
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human race from death (Artificial Intelligence May Doom the Human Race Within a Century,
Oxford Professor Says). Free will allows humans to make decisions; those decisions are not
always in our best interest though and can even lead to death (Artificial Intelligence May Doom
the Human Race Within a Century, Oxford Professor Says). The AI could observe how free
will can be bad idea and decide the best way to protect the human race is to completely control
their lives (Artificial Intelligence May Doom the Human Race Within a Century, Oxford
Professor Says). The other potential threat is AI deciding to destroy humanity (Artificial
Intelligence May Doom the Human Race Within a Century, Oxford Professor Says). For
instance, imagine an artificial intelligence is tasked with creating as many paper clips as it can
(Artificial Intelligence May Doom the Human Race Within a Century, Oxford Professor Says).
This task sounds simple enough and relatively harmless at first (Artificial Intelligence May
Doom the Human Race Within a Century, Oxford Professor Says). At one point though the
artificial intelligence could decide to destroy the human race because they waste resources or
may turn off the AI which would reduce the amount of paper clips that could be made
(Artificial Intelligence May Doom the Human Race Within a Century, Oxford Professor Says).
With the wrong programming and priorities built in to an artificial intelligence, the whole human
race could be eradicated (Artificial Intelligence May Doom the Human Race Within a Century,
Once an artificial intelligence has the belief that the human race needs to be destroyed,
the next question is how would an artificial intelligence achieve that (We All May Be Dead in
2050). One of the alarming possibilities of AI controlling weapons is drones (We All May Be
Dead in 2050). The government already has drones that contain systems to help the pilot with
almost every facet of the drone (We All May Be Dead in 2050). It does not take much
imagination to foresee drones that can pilot themselves (We All May Be Dead in 2050). The
next great revolution in modern warfare is the advent of largely autonomous weapons that can
destroy targets without human influence (We All May Be Dead in 2050). Once such weapons
are created there might not be any way of turning back (We All May Be Dead in 2050). The
most lethal way an artificial intelligence could kill humans though would be by learning to hack
Hackers). If an AI could break in to a phone, override its programming, and make it explode;
that would be truly catastrophic (We All May Be Dead in 2050). In an interview with Mark
Dorsey, a politically active small businessman, he stated that he had no idea about the potential
threat of artificial intelligence (Dorsey, Mark). The real end game would be if a hostile artificial
intelligence could hack in to a nuclear missile system (These Engineers Are Developing
Artificially Intelligent Hackers). The entire world would end in dozens of mushroom clouds
(These Engineers Are Developing Artificially Intelligent Hackers). Even if it could not hack in
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to nuclear systems, the AI could get in to other weapon systems (These Engineers Are
Developing Artificially Intelligent Hackers). It could take fire non-nuclear missiles, or even
make a nuclear reactor melt down (These Engineers Are Developing Artificially Intelligent
Hackers). The horrible prospect about this situation would be mans inability to stop the AI
(The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence). If one of these AIs were at the level of
AGI or especially ASI, they would be so much more intelligent than humans that outwitting
humans to achieve its goals would be easy (The AI Revolution: The Road to
Superintelligence).
Some would say that it is pointless to worry about this potential future because it is so far
away. In fact, it is not very far away at all (Will Artificial Intelligence Surpass Our Own?).
Technological progress has been increasing at an exponential rate (Will Artificial Intelligence
Surpass Our Own?). Many researchers and scientists believe that artificial intelligence will
surpass humanities knowledge within the century (Will Artificial Intelligence Surpass Our
Own?). This point where artificial intelligence becomes smarter than humans is called the
technological singularity (Will Artificial Intelligence Surpass Our Own?). Many believe that
when that event occurs the human race will either be saved by this AI or destroyed (Will
Artificial Intelligence Surpass Our Own?). In that moment, there is no sure way to tell if the AI
will see humans as an enemy, a friend, or just ignore them as if they are insignificant (Will
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Artificial Intelligence Surpass Our Own?). Some believe that the AI will help humanity to fix a
lot of problems and to invent like weve never imagined (Will Artificial Intelligence Surpass
Our Own?). Others, like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking, believe it will see the human
population as a waste of resources or a threat and will eliminate them (Will Artificial
In conclusion, artificial intelligence has the potential to completely eradicate the human
race. This problem is steadily and quickly advancing on to society. Artificial Intelligence could
take away jobs from the people, become incredibly more intelligent than us, manifest a desire to
destroy us, and turn our own weapons against us. The people must be warned of this potential
threat. It is unclear what actions should be taken to protect humanity from artificial intelligence.
Pete Seeger famously said, The first step in solving a problem is admitting there is a problem to
Works Cited
Azquotes.com, http://www.azquotes.com/quote/1180035.
Coming to an Office near You. The Economist, The Economist Group Limited, 18 Jan. 2014,
https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21594298-effect-todays-technology-
tomorrows-jobs-will-be-immenseand-no-country-ready.
Heath, Nick. Why AI Could Destroy More Jobs than It Creates, and How to Save Them. Tech
Republic,
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/ai-is-destroying-more-jobs-than-it-creates-what-it-
means-and-how-we-can-stop-it/.
Koch, Cristof. Will Artificial Intelligence Surpass Our Own? Scientific American, 1 Sept.
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2015, www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-artificial-intelligence-surpass-our-own/.
Miles, Kathleen. Artificial Intelligence May Doom The Human Race Within A Century, Oxford
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Nesbitt, Jeff. We All May Be Dead in 2050. US News and World Report, 29 Oct. 2015,
www.usnews.com/news/blogs/at-the-edge/2015/10/29/artificial-intelligence-may-kill-us-
all-in-30-years.
www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/03/artificial-intelligence-hackers-security-a
utonomous-learning.
Urban, Tim. The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence. Wait But Why, 22 Jan. 2015,
https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html.