Human's Challenger as Apex Predator is AI

Dear Readers, Turn to page 423 in my debut book Cyber Frogs and Princes: A Sex Manual Of On-Line Dating After 50, by Suze Q, and tell me if you agree. "Since time began, man has been curious. It's one of our superpowers that keeps us alert and alive. We focus on an unknown danger by primitive warning signs, but like forbidden fruit, we are often drawn to it. Then we tame it, and it loses its fear factor. Then we integrate the experience as normal, not deviant, and with that inclusion, we expand and broaden our range of acceptance. With this learning method, we achieve mastery of the once unknown and build a powerful cache in our armories of intelligence. Only time will tell if we master robots or will they enslave us? Or a better case scenario--we achieve a cooperative partnership." I wrote about the real challenges of what we should do about robots (destroy them, date them, partially become them), and more insidiously, about the uncontrolled, unregulated artificial intelligence problem. It’s a core subject to our survival as the apex predator. In the last month, I’ve been inundated with chatter that AI has man beat. It’s only a question of time.    

For 2M years, homo sapiens have been the Apex Predator because of curiosity, empathy, and a prehensile grip with opposable thumbs. Hopefully, AI can never excel in curiosity that continually pushes humans beyond our limits so that we thrive, not merely survive. Only humans can put ourselves in others’ shoes -to feel, not merely think, as others do. So we've flourished, not merely thrived. We must continue or perish.

Part of maintaining apex predator status requires dominance and control of everything in the habitat. Balance must be maintained. And power must be absolute. Achieving a stable social order requires that the Apex keep the tension of a delicate social balance between change and continuity; the masses/citizens must remain invested in their collective future. Believing you have power to create your future has pushed man beyond settling for the creation of the wheel and tools; the terrifying taming of fire and electricity; the Industrial, and Digital Revolutions; the rebuilding of nations, and establishing the United Nations and the Cold War dynamics after the destruction of World Wars and global conflicts. 

But this AI monster is different. Are we able to tame AI and bring it under our control, or will mankind perish? We allowed AI into every devise and to collect every scape of human data. When it nano- or neural-integrates into one huge collective entity, MAYBE we will still understand it, but can we harvest its power and make it our own? We have a functional, 80-year-old organization in place whose articulated mission is to maintain international peace and security. At the time of the U.N.’s creation, AI was unknown, and until recently not even thought of as a security threat. The United Nations could be a place to start securing our world from AI dominance. Thoughts? -SQ