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Artificial Intelligence, Globalization, Global Warming, Limits to Growth, War or Random Event?

It is amusing to consider all of the different scare stories around at the moment and analyse which of these are really likely to get us.  Of course, none of the events described below need happen, if people acted reasonably and not mindlessly they could all be prevented and the world could have a glowing future.

Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and Bill Gates have all warned that AI is an existential threat for mankind.  The new breakthrough for AI is the incorporation of a virtual reality (a sort of mind) into computer programs that run robots.  This is a major step forward and I can see little to prevent the development of an Artificial Intelligence that will emulate the behaviour of human beings.  As Hawking points out, there will come a stage when AIs design and build AIs.  When this happens the machines will outperform us in every process.  We are only a decade or two from this development, we are finally on the verge of truly intelligent machines, which is why such eminent people as Hawking and Gates are giving us fair warning.

Robots based on Artificial Intelligence will begin by displacing people from low level jobs such as supermarket checkout and call-centre staff but they will also be used by rich countries as soldiers.  Contrary to Sci-Fi films, robot soldiers will be unlikely to miss when they shoot and almost impossible to disable.  They will win.  Which brings us to Globalization.

Whether by political stealth or by the use of robot soldiers, the world is headed towards global government.  The people of the world are amazingly apathetic about the risks of joining together into larger states and then merging these together.  Past empires have always had to face different cultures and viewpoints beyond their borders but once the world is united there will be no rescue from outside.  Eventually a repressive government will occur and during the fight against "terrorism" that this will engender a global tyranny will develop.  Such a tyranny is likely to last centuries or millennia. 

Climate Change may come to our rescue.  If the IPCC are right then there is a distinct possibility that rising temperatures and sea levels will damage the world's economy to such an extent that World Government and rule by AIs will remain just the dreams of psychopaths and childish voters.  If the anti-global warming lobby are right then we will not be saved from AIs and Globalization.

The Limits to Growth inherent in a finite world might save us from all these scary futures.  It is becoming more expensive to extract and grow the commodities that support global industry and population.  There is a theory that we have already overshot the maximum population that the world can sustain and face a bleak future of declining trade and GDP.  The theory proposes that 2015 is the year when the decline begins. At least this might save us from Climate Change, AIs and Globalization.  A nuclear war would have a similar, though more sudden effect.

Which of these events is inevitable?  Gates and Hawking are probably right, high functioning Artificial Intelligence is inevitable if the world can sustain its current economic volume.   World Government will be inevitable if AIs occur, given the military advantage of AIs.   AIs will be able to travel into space easily so there will be no problem with finite resources.  Whether AIs will be bothered by Climate Change once they are ascendant will depend on their attitude to humanity and biology.  Morality depends on human consciousness - the simultaneous pattern in a time extended human mind - AIs will not have the hardware to make moral decisions and will be thoroughly postmodern.  Indeed, the rise of postmodernism amongst the people of the world is what has brought us to the verge of creating processors to replace us.

What is particularly interesting about these scary alternatives is that they all involve tipping points.  For example, AIs may run the checkouts in supermarkets and appear totally harmless but the moment AIs start designing high functioning AIs everything will change in a year or two.  As another example, if the EU and USA were to merge with TTIP it would all seem fine until Japan, Australia, Mexico etc. joined, the new superpower could dictate terms to smaller countries and World Government might suddenly occur.  Global Warming might seem relatively harmless but one year the arctic ice might disappear, methane be released and the world might fry.  The Limits to Growth scenarios all predict the globe merrily growing in prosperity until, over 5 years, it all collapses.   In other words, we wont see it coming, whatever it is.

I hope none of these alternatives come to pass...the next 50 years will be interesting, the possibilities remind me of the apocryphal Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times".

The glowing future:  software developers might form an international committee for the standardisation and monitoring of AI that was backed by national governments; countries might respect each other's borders and allow separate development of nations; global population might be capped at 8 billion; the world might come together under a legal framework that regulates the relations between states without the need to merge us all together;  people could believe the IPCC rather than lobby groups; AIs could be developed that find rare metals in space; fusion power could be exploited. All we would need to have a glowing future would be to act like reasonable, tolerant human beings.


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