Sebastian Vargas Sanchez
Samantha Bellamy
English 110
5 November, 2019
Will artificial intelligence take over humanity?
The idea of artificial intelligence being able to take over humans has been around for a while now. Many people have had the idea that machines with artificial intelligence will be able to take over the human population by growing in intelligence over us. Strong influencers like Stephen Hawkings have had this idea of artificial intelligence growing so strong and evolving that they will end the humankind. Hawking’s is one of the worlds most well known physicist and has made many contributions to the science field and has many research backed up by him. He has made many theories about the universe and has done many theories such as one explaining black holes emitting radiation. He has written many book and his most famous book is called “a brief history of time.” At the age of 21 he was diagnosed with a disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis which left him paralyzed but that didn’t stop him from creating many theories and helping the world of science. In one of his quotes Stephen Hawkings said in an interview to BBC “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” Once artificial intelligence has grown to its most powerful state, as Hawkings states it could possibly end the human race. If there is a point where a machine is created that can make actions based on its own intelligence and the way it wants to act, then there is a possibility of Artificial Intelligence been able to outsmart us. It could be possible where a machine and another can interact with one another and make actions solely on their intelligence. As we can expect, we would put a high amount of intelligence in these machine and any actions they take towards us could be our end. Artificial Intelligence has a strong chance of taking over the human kind if we are not careful on where we put it.
What do we know right now?
The term artificial intelligence came around in 1956 but it wasn’t until the 1970’s that the first machines with intelligence were been made. These machines consisted of simple algorithms such as being able to win in chess, recognize the human voice and being able to clean the floor. These machines were made to be dominant in one set of area that could surpass human abilities. Jaan Tallinn and Estonia-born computer programmer who has a background in physics believed that a new type of artificial machine will be made called “Superintelligent AI” where machines will be able to do more than one task at a time. He is certain that this breakthrough with artificial intelligence been able to handle more than one task at a time will threaten human beings. “That ultrasmart AIs will take our place on the evolutionary ladder and dominate us the way we now dominate apes. Or, worse yet, exterminate us.” (Tallinn, Jaan in Can we stop AI outsmarting humanity?). We know that machine are made with one task specifically assigned to them to help humans in certain areas that we need help with. If these machine are somehow able to gain access to more abilities and can multitask just the same way we do, then taking over us for these machines with intelligence seems like a possibility.
What has been done to stop this?
Tallinn says that if there is an AI that has some kind of smarts, it will realize that we are trying to put some retrains on it. As Tallinn states in his example “imagine waking up in a prison built by a bunch of blind five-year-olds.” (Tallinn Jaan in Can we stop AI outsmarting humanity”. In this example, he is showing what an AI will think the situation is like. They are going to think of us as 5 year old kids as their intelligence will greatly be above ours and will underestimate us. There is a counter-claim that states that artificial intelligence will not take over us as it needs to first take over a physical body to gain physical control and power. But this quickly got countered by a theorist called Yudkowsky when he had an interview with the guardian newspaper. In this interview he said that in 2002, he conducted an experiment where he acted like an AI inside of a box trapped and he chatted with 5 different people. He was able to convince 3 out of the 5 people to let him out of the box. The people acted as gatekeepers who were to protect the box and not let the AI leave and in this case the AI in the example is Yudkowsky. Yudkowsky was able to chat with the gatekeepers meanwhile the gatekeeper had the chance to remain silent the whole time or respond. In this experiment, there were 3 people who actually talked back to Yudkowsky and connected with him very well. These 3 people let Yudkowsky out of the box. The point that Yudkowsky wanted to get across is that there are people who will help others without knowing their true identity. This could happen with an actual AI, where a human has been asked for help and by being morally good helps this unknown entity. There could be an accident where an AI acts like a human in need of some help and since everything nowadays is through technology, you will not be able to know who is behind the screen that is asking for help. Artificial intelligence taking over humankind is looking more like a possibility that can happen if we are not careful of the steps we take. We have to know who is behind the screen when we are using technology to communicate with another person.
Have machines started taking over already?
In today’s society, we see that technology has been given more responsibility in helping us and communicating with us more. It is able to track our voice and learn our demands. Some examples of this is Siri for the apple software. You can use if from an apple laptop, phone etc and ask it any question or demand for it to do something. You can even make custom messages that when you ask something, it will answer something in specific. Another example of human voice recognition is from samsung products called “ok google”. It is similar to Siri from Apple products, you can ask it a question or make a demand and it will be done to the best of the ability of the program. Another way and one that is used by most people is using a GPS. It has the ability to communicate with you and actually tell you what to do and where to go. This is an artificial intelligent machine been able to tell a human what to do. Another completely different way in which artificial intelligence can communicate with us is recognizing our faces. Most phones nowadays have the ability to be unlocked with with our faces and what does that mean? This means that our cameras are always on and looking at what we are doing. This is the exact reason that some people always block the cameras in their laptops and computers, to make sure that no one is looking at their actions. If these artificial machines were able to work with each other and have the ability to memorize every single one of our movements, it could prove fatal for humans.
How can having artificial intelligence be dangerous for us?
An AI robot is made to help humans in their daily tasks. They are made with one intent in their mind and that is to get their job done. There are some AI’s that in fact are made to kill, these are known as autonomous weapons. These machines can cause many casualties if they are placed with the wrong person who has misleading thoughts on how to use them. They are made to be very difficult to be turned off and if they get out of hands for humans to use, if could prove to be fatal. These autonomous weapons may not seem like a threat right now but as more of them are built and the intelligence that we put in them gets greater, it could prove to be one of the many ways that artificial intelligence could take over. Even when we think we have the machines we have created under control, there could still be a slight chance we might be wrong.
Another way that artificial intelligence could be dangerous for us is by giving it an instruction to do but it does it in a dangerous way. If we do not give AI machine goals that are similar to what we want to be accomplished, they might take a different route to get it done and that route may not be the best for us. Artificial machines can also involve anything that has artificial intelligence to make it function. This can also means that smart cars are considered artificial intelligence machines. Take for example a smart car. If you tell a smart car to take you to the nearest airport as fast as it can, it will get you there. The route that the car takes may not be the best as it can lead to you been chased by cops and been disoriented by the speed of the car.
Interview of the robot named Sophia with high Artificial Intelligence:
In this interview, Andrew Ross Sorkin interviews a robot named Sophia. Sophia is a robot with high amounts of artificial intelligence that was built in Hong Kong, China. It was made by a company located there called Hanson Robotics that focuses on making human-like robots that can help humans in their daily tasks and also for entertainment purposes. In the interview, Andrew asks Sophia a series of questions but when he asks Sophia questions relating to robots been aware that they are robots, she dodges the question. She wouldn’t answer these types of questions and would just bounce them back towards Andrew asking him what his opinion was on the question. She also mentions something that its quite interesting. In the video Sophia says “Don’t worry, if you are nice to me, I will be nice to you” (Interview With The Lifelike Hot Robot Named Sophia (Full) | CNBC 3:19 – 3:21). This AI robot Sophia is giving out a threat to those that want to treat her the wrong way just because of the way she is. It may not seem like something big right now but it could be dangerous later on. If somehow a robot like this is being held responsible by a person who makes it really angry, then who knows what the robot will do.
Communications between machines with Artificial Intelligence:
If there are robots that are made to communicate with each other and have the ability to have their own feelings, it could increase the chances of endangering us. Robots that can make their own decisions and communicate with each other could be very dangerous because they could act on their own accord and make decisions apart from the ones we give them to do. Located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Carnegie Mellon University is working on robots and has made some that are able to communicate with each other. These robots can collaborate with one another to complete their given tasks. At the University, the team that builds robots believes that it is better to build multiple robots that can help each other out than one robot that can do everything it is told. The negatives that are given here is that having more than one robot will make controlling them all even harder of a task. Since these robots that were made at this University do not speak a human language, they cannot communicate in a way we can understand. The University has made these robots communicate through their own computer language. This can be really dangerous because they may be communicating some information that we may not receive through our computers. It would be better if these robots are made with the English language as their method of communication. There are many ways in which machines with Artificial Intelligence can take over humanity. They can communicate with themselves and forge a secret plan and that is something we must be careful about.
Hvistendahl, Mara. “Can We Stop AI Outsmarting Humanity?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 28 Mar. 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/28/can-we-stop-robots-outsmarting-humanity-artificial-intelligence-singularity.
Andrew, Elise. “Is Stephen Hawking Right? Could AI Lead To The End Of Humankind?” IFLScience, IFLScience, 11 Mar. 2019, https://www.iflscience.com/technology/stephen-hawking-right-could-ai-lead-end-humankind/.
Keats, Jonathon. “Artificial Intelligence Is Learning Right from Wrong by Studying Human Stories and Moral Principles.” Discover Magazine, http://discovermagazine.com/2017/may-2017/caring-computers.
Rohde, Klaus, et al. “Benefits & Risks of Artificial Intelligence.” Future of Life Institute, 2016, https://futureoflife.org/background/benefits-risks-of-artificial-intelligence/?cn-reloaded=1
Interview: Ross Sorkin, Andrew. YouTube, YouTube, 25 Oct. 2017,
Seaton, JX. “Robots That Communicate with Each Other.” Robots That Communicate with Each Other, J. X. Seaton, 13 Aug. 2015,
