Last month, British chancellor George Osborne announced that driverless lorries will be tested on UK roads. The ‘drivers’ of these 44-tonne vehicles will be computers. Similar tests have already been carried out on cars. For example, since 2009, Google’s self-driving cars have driven 1.3 million miles on all kinds of roads. The results? So far the Google cars have been involved in 18 accidents, but 17 of them were caused by humans driving other cars. Computers are already driving better than people! By 2020, the first commercial self-driving cars will be on the market. All those who hate driving will be happy: they will be able to spend their time in the car reading, sleeping, playing video games… while their car takes them wherever they want to go.

The second machine revolution

We invented machines to do the work that we didn’t want to do ourselves. Industries are full of machines that can do all sorts of tasks better and more quickly than any human ever could. Dishwashers, washing machines, vacuum cleaners… even our homes are full of machines that do our chores. Experts say that this is just the beginning. The first, mechanical revolution is being followed by a second, digital revolution. The new generation of machines, computers and robots will be better than us not just at manual tasks, but also at professional ones: we may soon have robot doctors, teachers and politicians. Some have predicted that robots will take over most jobs within 30 years. The question then becomes: what will we do? Will we live lives of total leisure, or will we become dangerously unemployed and terribly bored? Some say that there are two other, more incredible scenarios to consider.

Scenario 1: The AI Apocalypse!

If we continue creating more intelligent machines, we will eventually create a conscious artificial intelligence, or AI. Such a machine will be as intelligent, as creative and – probably – as self-aware as we are. But unlike us, an AI will be able to upgrade itself. An AI will quickly become an ASI, an Artificial Super Intelligence, and an ASI might not want to do what we, inferior beings, tell it to do. It might not get along with us. It might even consider us a nuisance or a threat, and might get rid of us, squashing us like insects. Science fiction has already investigated this scenario: think of the films The Terminator and The Matrix or last year’s Ex Machina. “Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history,” said Stephen Hawking, the world’s most famous physicist. But, he points out: “it might be our worst mistake.”

Scenario 2: Transhumans

Many in the fields of science and technology do not share Hawking’s fears; some even claim that they are dangerous. Every year, the American Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) gives the Luddite Award to “someone who seeks to hold back the introduction of new technologies.” The recently announced 2015 winners were Stephen Hawing and others who, like him, have “alarmist” ideas on artificial intelligence. ITIF and other optimists in the high-tech sector such as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg believe that an AI will be very beneficial for humanity. They look forward to its invention because they believe it will work for us and solve all our problems. Futurist Ray Kurzweil says that an AI will do even more than that. He believes that we will join with our intelligent machines. We will connect our brains to the AI and become transhumans: immortal super beings, part human and part machine.

Never before has our future looked so unpredictable. One thing is for sure: it will be incredible!

(Carlo Dellonte)

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(Image credits: flickr and flickr)