AI

Any tool created by humans can be used for ill or for good. But AI is unlike any previous technological revolution before. Writing, printing, the Internet - the reach and impact of each took time and had limitations driven by access and distribution (and implementation). AI can be accessed virtually anywhere by anyone with Internet access.

With typical Icarusian hubris we have broken open a Pandora's box, the impacts of which we really don't know or understand.

It's really disturbing. I have fb friends saying "it's just a tool and like other tech revolutions, we will adjust" but no where in history have we deployed a tool so powerful, so reachable and accessible, as we have now, without fully understanding or controlling it.

Imagine the power this will give authoritarian and autocratic nations, never mind democratic one's over their citizens.

AI will make personal privacy and security very difficult to maintain. There is no way this powerful tool will not be employed by 3 letter agencies, border security, airports and security apparatus.

Imagine entering a country facing an AI at the border that

"(AI systems) can already detect reactions that no human can perceive. For example, AI systems can detect “micro-expressions” on your face and in your voice that are too subtle for human observers but which reflect inner feelings. Similarly, AI systems can read faint changes in your complexion known as “facial blood flow patterns” and tiny changes in your pupil size, both of which reflect emotional reactions. Virtual spokespeople will be far more perceptive of our inner feelings than any human."

The ability to manipulate people and information is without parallel. Already we face deep fakes, bot driven propogand online. But that's nothing to what's coming.

AI will be weaponised and what that means can only be guessed at, but I doubt it will be good for the average person on this planet. Of course, our other hubris, massive resource consumption, leading to climate change, may end AI for different reasons - but that's not a good thing either. Of course there is the X factor - worst case scenarios rarely happen. But even if it doesn't, it still will mean impacts we can't avoid.

To quote Ian malcolm in Jurassic Park

"Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should."

https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/risks-of-artificial-intelligence