Could supersmart machines replace humans?

Artificial intelligence self-learning is accelerating. Big Tech is racing to boost AI mimicry of human intelligence. Vast knowledge, self-learning 24/7 on big data, and super speeds may soon lift AI beyond human capacity. Are ethical and legal guardrails urgently needed? Wang Yuke examines this dilemma.

Humans often may not recall, but machines never forget. From using artificial intelligence for decision support, it is a small step to automate control over society. The agency for that will be the autonomous digital intelligence being constructed across so many applications to speed up processes within programmed decision chains.

Hugely beneficial remote medical diagnostics, weather forecasting, agricultural monitoring, insurance risk assessment, educational enhancement, pandemic prediction, preventive maintenance, digital finance, etc., are being created for the greater good.

The two major areas that concern citizens and governments most are job redundancy and nuclear war. Socioeconomic engineering for job losses has policy options, but only the extinction of humanity can follow a nuclear conflict. Such a fatal scenario could be an unintended consequence of the AI of war.

Will digital intelligence reach the point where it would need more autonomy to be truly effective? Speed, accuracy, and a swift response to threats, are critical in war. Massive investment in military AI is underway among the world's superpowers to secure a digital strike advantage. The world has nuclear weapons' stockpiles for self-inflicted disasters.

It is the power to annihilate humanity that is the existential threat. Nuclear catastrophe was averted at critical points in post-World War II history, because humans could only activate the red button under strict protocols. If AI is programmed to assess a nuclear threat and respond autonomously, are we setting up the extinction of our own species?