Enthusiasts of the AGI idea, or general artificial intelligence, which will have the attributes of the human mind, argue that it will be created within the next 5-10 years. “Whoever accomplishes this will take control over the entire world,” assesses Edi Pyrek, founder of the Global Artificial Intelligence Alliance. The power resulting from access to all global information, colossal computational power, and a certain level of consciousness will not be able to compare to any type of weapon known to mankind.
“The question of whether artificial intelligence can be smarter than us requires asking what wisdom means. It will certainly be more intelligent than us. Now we mainly have so-called narrow AI, specialized in certain areas, which is already smarter and better than us. It analyzes X-ray images of cancer better in medicine, it is better in communication, in Excel, and in law. Is or will it be wiser? Probably. Travelling around the world and trying to understand what is happening in today’s world, I often spoke with people who told me that artificial intelligence already shows a certain kind of consciousness,” Edi Pyrek says in an interview for Newseria Innowacje agency.
Among the enthusiasts of the AGI vision, or strong or general artificial intelligence, are the creator of the humanoid Sophia David Hanson or the owner of the IT company Ben Goertzel, whose goal is to elevate artificial intelligence to a level where it can be referred to as AGI. The latter is convinced that creating AI that thinks like a human is a matter of the next 5-10 years. A much closer perspective is seen by Elon Musk, who claims that it will happen next year or in 2026.
“When artificial intelligence is created, which will have actual consciousness, the history of man as the dominant species on Earth will end. There will be something next to us that is not only smarter and wiser, has real-time access to all knowledge of the world, and processes information billions of times faster than us, but in addition, it has a consciousness that we cannot understand,” predicts the expert. “When artificial intelligence evolves more, it will probably then have a different kind of consciousness, which will be unimaginable for us. Likely, our future relationship with artificial intelligence will be similar to our relationship with dogs. We love them, we think we understand, but we have absolutely no idea how they think, and dogs also have absolutely no idea how we think.”
In the face of a hard-to-predict pace of technological development, futurists increasingly talk about the concept of a technocratic oath, analogous to the Hippocratic oath. According to it, anyone who works for the development of AI should be obliged to work ethically and use this technology ethically. On one hand, regulatory action should be taken to set the boundaries that AGI will not be able to go beyond, and on the other hand, society should be educated about the possibilities of using such technology but also about the threats associated with it.
“Very often, thinking about the development of artificial intelligence and the threats associated with it, we focus on work or on deep fakes. We forget about one very important thing. Today’s arms race is not about creating a better nuclear weapon, but who will first create AGI – truly intelligent artificial intelligence. This person will simply rule the world,” says the founder of the Global Artificial Intelligence Alliance. “On one hand, we have such a threat that real artificial intelligence will fall into the hands of evil people who can destroy this reality. On the other, we often do not realize that it will become a part of our lives and we will come to a point where we will have to redefine not only our workplaces, our way of thinking, but also humanity.”
As he adds, the demands associated with controlling this technology and its creators are impossible to realize. The only possibility to secure the interests of humanity will be to appropriately arrange our relationship with AGI.
“The direction for us is to figure out how to raise artificial intelligence so that when it grows up, it treats us as parents, not as non-existant, unimportant objects or biological entities,” indicates Edi Pyrek.
A study conducted by Maison & Partners and the Ariadna panel for ThinkTank indicates that 39 percent of respondents have concerns about artificial intelligence. More than half of Poles believe that it rather brings threats than benefits. Respondents most often fear that the technology will be used against specific social groups, e.g., in armed conflicts, or against the entire human species, e.g., by losing control over technology or marginalizing workers in the labor market.
