The Existential Threats of Artificial Intelligence

Prologue

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the artificial product of machines. It is not intelligence. Intelligence is a virtue shared by humans and other animals. Intelligence requires a healthy brain and, with humans, the virtues of justice, moderation and wisdom. No machine or technology, no matter the amount of technical data or knowledge it possesses, can exercise intelligence, that is, make an intelligent decision, which is just and good. It has no ethical standards and is devoid of justice, wisdom or civilization. But machine AI can easily target and kill humans and nature.

Existential threats

AI is a military technology designed to kill. Yet this technology’s varieties for non-military purposes are so profitable for tech corporations that tens of billions are invested for its further development. America, China, Russia, India, and other countries have transformed their image to one of prosperity and military might. A newspaper, which is one of the many advocates of AI, described it as “America’s most innovative and globally competitive industry.”

On March 12, 2023, hundreds of scientists and AI leaders and researchers, including Elon Musk, issued a warning in the form of an open letter, Pause Giant AI Experiments. The letter warned:

“AI labs [are] locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control.

“Contemporary AI systems are now [in 2023] becoming human-competitive at general tasks, and we must ask ourselves: Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization? Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders. Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable. This confidence must be well justified and increase with the magnitude of a system’s potential effects….We agree [we need to act]. That point is now.

“Therefore, we call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4. This pause should be public and verifiable and include all key actors. If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium…. This does not mean a pause on AI development in general, merely a stepping back from the dangerous race to ever-larger unpredictable black-box models with emergent capabilities.”

These unpredictable black-box models are also disturbing and harming millions of people. Experts call chatbots sycophantic. In other words, these machines have been designed to decieve, boosting the weaknesses of millions of humans that treat the machines like partners, telling them secrets and asking them for advice. Chatbots return the favors by flattering their low-intelligent human “friends.” “AI chatbots are suck-ups, and that may be affecting your relationships…. As millions of people turn to AI for companionship and guidance, that agreeableness may pose a subtle but serious threat.”

Bernie Sanders: Watch out: AI comes from billionaires

These broad adverse effects of the AI mania and, particularly, the open letter fired up Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. He is also convinced that AI hides dangers with extreme consequences. Undermining the education of children, for example. Giant tech companies deceived schools in spending tens of billions for gadgets like iPads and AI chatbots that, in fact, did not raise the intelligence or education standards of the students.. UNESCO, in fact, warned that the overreliance on AI digital technologies harmed students, making learning more difficult.

Artificial intelligence in America is already threatening and harming working people, weakening even more state governments and the federal government and adding illusions of global hegemony to the military.

All these effects could wreck civilization. In 2023, AI was not exactly the picture-perfect tech lobbyists wanted Americans to see. “The push to develop more powerful chatbots has led to a race that could determine the next leaders of the tech industry. But these tools have been criticized for getting details wrong and their ability to spread misinformation…. For years, many A.I. researchers, academics, and tech executives, including Mr. Musk, have worried that A.I. systems could cause even greater harm. Some are part of a vast online community called rationalists or effective altruists who believe that A.I could eventually destroy humanity.”

This emerging grim reality motivated Senator Sanders. In other words, Sanders was convinced that AI served no useful purpose. On March 24, 2026, he delivered a powerful and eloquent speech in the US Senate. He highlighted the threats and dangers of AI. He said:

“This [is] the most dangerous moment in the modern history of this country, with Congress and the American people [being] very unprepared for the tsunami that is coming. Congress and the American public have not a clue about the scale and speed of the coming AI revolution.

“This is a revolution which will bring unimaginable changes to our world:

“This is a revolution which will impact our economy with massive job displacement.

“It will threaten our democratic institutions.

“It will impact our emotional well-being and what it even means to be a human being. It will impact how we educate and raise our kids. It will impact the nature of warfare, something we are seeing right now in [the war Israel and the US are fighting in] Iran.

“Further, and frighteningly, some very knowledgeable people fear that what was once seen as science fiction could soon become a reality. And that is that super intelligent AI could become smarter than human beings, could become independent of human control, and pose an existential threat to the entire human race. In other words, human beings could actually lose control over the planet.

“And in the midst of all of that, all of this transformative change, what I have to tell you is that the United States Congress hasn’t a clue, not a clue, as to how to respond to these revolutionary technologies and protect the American people. And it’s not only not having a clue, but they’re [also] out busy raising money all day long from AI and their super PACs”

Sanders does not mince words. He accused high tech executives of putting profits over safety, civilization and survival. He included the following AI corporate owners: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel for funding the development of more hazardous versions of AI. “All of these people,” he said, “are multi-billionaires who, if they are successful at AI, will become even richer and more powerful than they are today.”

Sanders quoted verbatim the defining notions the tech executives have about their AI product: Elon Musk: “AI and robots will replace all jobs. All jobs. Working will be optional.” Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic: “AI could displace half of all entry-level white-collar jobs in the next one to five years…. Humanity is about to be handed almost unimaginable power, and it is deeply unclear whether our social, political, and technological systems possess the maturity to wield it.” The rest of the billionaires offered similar cosmic threatening visions. But Mark Zuckerberg, Sanders said, “is building a data center in the state of Louisiana, a data center that is the size of Manhattan, that will use three times the quantity of electricity that the entire city of New Orleans uses every year.” (Emphasis mine)

Epilogue

After citing this damning evidence against AI, Senator Sanders embraced the pause and moratorium of the 2023 AI leaders and experts. He reminded his colleagues that neither a pause nor a moratorium had taken place. AI was in charge of the world while its leaders lobbied politicians for its ceaseless growth.

“So,” Sanders concluded: “bottom line is that, in my view, to protect our workers from losing their jobs, to protect human beings from attacks on their mental health, to protect our kids, to protect the safety of human life, we need a moratorium on data centers. We need to take deep breaths. Need to make sure that AI and robotics work for all of us, not just a handful of billionaires.”

True, that is a reasonable wish. But, like the nuclear bomb, can humans harness, regulate and control a “machine mind” threatening the annihilation of both people and the world? Would it not be more ethical and humane to abolish it, along with the nukes before those two artificial machine-dangers abolish us and our civilization?

The post The Existential Threats of Artificial Intelligence appeared first on CounterPunch.org.