Greg Chaffins Part of the NerdBeach Series “Artificial Intelligence Explained: What It Is, How It Works, and Where It’s Going”
Let’s look into our Beach Ball – our equivalent of a crystal ball here at NerdBeach – and say that we actually succeed in building something better than any Artificial Intelligence (AI) in existence today. Something not just better and faster in the usual sense, but one well beyond what we have now.
That something is Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). This is a system that thinks – yes, thinks – learns, and adapts as well as, if not better, than the typical human. This sounds amazing, and it really could be if applied correctly.
So, now let’s look ahead to see where AGI’s creation can lead us.
First: What AGI’s Existence Actually Means
We need to understand that AGI is not just better software. No, it’s an advanced system that can learn virtually anything that is presented to it. From there it can be used as a tool to help solve our problems, and it can adapted across any number of application fields.
Basically, AGI can excel on any intellectual task that a human would normally do. (IBM) That’s huge and in direct contrast to current AI, which operates more like a specialist in its field. AGI, on the other hand is basically a general thinker on any number of given topics, hence the name. It’s not limited by its training.
The Best-Case Scenario: Everything Gets Better (Fast)
To start, let’s be the ultimate optimist and say that everything is going to be wonderful with our new AGI creation. After all, if things did go just right with its rollout, it would be one of the most powerful tools that humans have ever created AND manipulated.
Science and Medicine Accelerate
Science and Medicine efforts would be greatly accelerated through the use of AGI. With its abilities, it could potentially discover new drugs and medicines faster than anything previously achievable. This kind of intellectual capacity could be used to detect diseases before they are a threat faster than achieved before with human minds at the helm.
Existing medical problems could suddenly be tackled, with a thinking tool that might solve challenges that humanity has been stuck on for literally decades. There are some experts that believe AGI could make healthcare dramatically better, with headway made on major diseases finally getting a cure. (Wikipedia)
AGI would push the limits of science, with thousands of iterations in minutes and wide reaching research at its digital fingertips. It wouldn’t miss the connections that human researchers might, and it could develop that insight into a workable solution.
Big Problems Become… Solvable?
AGI is capable of analyzing massive amounts of data in order to find the solution that human minds, presented with such a volume of detail, might have missed. Such capability could:
- Optimize energy systems
- Predict disasters
- Manage global resources more efficiently
In theory, it could help us clean up a lot of the existing mess that we made before AGI existed. The power of both
- applied known research across mountainous data
- extreme iterations on how it all relates
could lay the groundworks for currently unimagined but needed solutions.
Work Changes (A Lot)
When it matures, AGI could automate many jobs that vary in their application. This is not the repetitive, assembly type jobs that AI handles now. No, we’re talking such things as:
- Writing
- Analysis
- Planning
- Problem-solving
Experts suggest that AI could handle a large percentage of the jobs that now exist across many industries.(Consultancy ME) Which leads us to two possible but very different outcomes:
- More freedom and less work.
- a very confusing and fractured job market.
As to which of these is the future of work with AGI we currently can’t tell. Our beach ball gets cloudy at that point.
The Weird Middle Phase: Society Has to Adjust
Even as we are speaking about the positive side of AGI’s impact, there would be some definite weirdness before things settle down. We could expect jobs to change quickly as new capabilities are brought to light, leading to shifts across entire industries.
Skills that were once in high (and lucrative) demand could suddenly become unneeded in a changing world dynamic. During the transformation, we’re have to rethink some of our basic life experiences, Notably, things like education and careers could have a different and foreign structure compared to today.
In fact, the definition of work itself may have a new meaning by the time the dust settles:
- Humans could be more of orchestrators of work being carried out by AGI systems
- Life skills may take on new roles entirely.
The problem here is that such a shift to our modern work would not be met without a lot of friction and disruption. And let’s be honest, us humans are not known for calmly adapting to massive changes.
The Real Concern: What If It Goes Wrong?
The beach ball is now turning a dark crimson, so I guess we now turn to the possible dark side of our future with AGI. Even as we look at the tremendous advantages of using it, the negatives do remain a very real possibility.
The Alignment Problem
This is a basic, core issue that we need to explore. Let’s ask ourself what it would mean if AGI didn’t share our basic human goals. Even this most advanced system ever devised by humans could misunderstand its instructions.
AGI could easily optimize for the wrong outcome from a human perspective, simply because it might lack human values. This misalignment is one of the biggest concerns when it comes to AI research. (Cognizant) Such a system could be very dangerous to modern life, even if it wasn’t intentionally evil. But the outcome could be the same.
Loss of Control (The Big Fear)
Now let’s talk about the big fear ever so popular in fiction when it comes to AGI – the loss of control. If it does become a reality, AGI would conceptually be more capable than humans. At that point controlling it could become problematic. Some researchers are concerned that it could:
- act in unexpected ways
- be difficult to shut down
- operate beyond human understanding (now that’s incomprehensibly scary)
There are extreme scenarios where it presents an existential threat for humanity itself. (EBSCO) Now, that sounds like the sci-fi version for sure, but the experts are taking it seriously. Serious enough, in fact, that they are already working on actionable safety measures. Yes, it’s a real threat.
Humans Would Have a Powerful Tool at Their Disposal – for Better or Worse
AGI would be a powerful tool, and we all know how humans can manipulate a powerful tool for evil uses. Even if it itself behaves perfectly, we humans might (probably) not. The disturbing part is that AGI could be used for:
- Cyberattacks
- Surveillance
- Manipulation
- Power concentration
The power of AGI could be used to amplify intentions of the people in control, for both good and bad..
The Most Likely Reality: Somewhere In Between
In all likelihood, especially with humans in the mix, the reality of AGI will be neither perfect nor catastrophic. The best scenario will probably be… complicated. We could find that major world problems are being solved as they create new creative and difficult ones. Life that is improved in one area could suddenly be disrupted in others.
This part we actually don’t have to guess about. We can look back at major technology introductions in the past and see this exact pattern of behavior. We should expect something similar in the future as well.
Are We Close to Actually Creating AGI?
Are we close to actually creating AGI? That depends on who you ask. Some experts theorize that AGI could arrive somewhere between 2040 to 2060. (AIMultiple) Then there are others that argue it would take much longer to achieve.
It might be good to note that AI’s arrival was expected to taken longer than it did. In fact, the use of AI today as a tool may serve to speed up the process of AGI’s creation faster than what we originally calculated. It’s a brave new world, even without AGI being here.
The Real Shift: Intelligence Is No Longer Just Human
AGI changes a basic fact that affects the fundamentals of our life on Earth – At that point humans would no longer be the only general intelligence present. That is not big, that’s a complete shift in civilization.
The Most Powerful Tool We’ve Ever Built
AGI, if built, won’t be just another one of our inventions. Instead, it will be the most powerful tool ever created, running on the most complex system ever managed. How responsibly we use this technology could well be the biggest test of our existence. It could either:
- solve the problems we’ve struggled with for decades
- could create a new set of problems that we are woefully unequipped to solve.
But the most likely scenario is somewhere in between the two, and we will probably need our new technology, once present, to move forward. Because. interestingly enough, we would need such capabilities for control simply because it exists.
Perhaps it’s time to start asking the question, “What kind of world can it build with us?”
This article is part of the NerdBeach series: Artificial Intelligence Explained: What It Is, How It Works, and Where It’s Going
