According To A US Physicist, There Is A 50% Probability That AI Will Exterminate Humanity

According to Max Tegmark, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), there is a 50% risk that artificial intelligence (AI) will exterminate humans.

According to Tegmark, humans, the “smartest” species on Earth, are to blame for the extinction of ‘lesser’ species like the dodo. Similarly, he continued, when AI surpasses human intelligence, humanity might suffer a similar fate.

The AI scientist was cited as saying, “About half of all other species on earth have already been eradicated by us humans.”

They had no power because we were more intelligent.

He said, “What we are warning about now is that things can go just as bad for us if we humans lose control over our society to machines that are much smarter than us.”

Tegmark is one of a rising number of sector specialists who are highlighting the risks associated with AI.

Leaders from Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Anthropic, and other AI laboratories issued an open statement last month warning that the next generation of systems might be just as lethal as pandemics and nuclear weapons.

“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war,” declares the Centre for AI Safety, a nonprofit organisation, in a one-sentence statement. More than 350 AI-related executives, researchers, and engineers signed the open letter.

The announcement comes at a time when worries about the possible negative effects of artificial intelligence are on the rise, sparked by the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots and worries that AI might lead to the loss of millions of white-collar jobs.

The grave concerns posed by AI technology, according to some experts, might be “overblown” at the moment.

According to Gary Marcus, a professor at New York University, AI poses a threat to democracy rather than to mankind.

He claimed that artificial intelligence might pose a threat to democracy from “chance disinformation to misinformation manufactured on purpose by malevolent actors. These tools can also be used to influence others and probably con them into doing whatever you desire.

Governments, he argued, should issue warnings about AI’s rapid growth and adoption rather than focusing on wiping out humanity.