As artificial intelligence advances, experts have warned about its potential to cause human extinction. Exactly how this might come about is a matter of speculation—but it’s not hard to see that intelligent robots could build more of themselves, improve on their own designs and pursue their own interests. And that could be a threat to humanity.
A first lesson is that, in the long run, there are no free lunches. Unfortunately, that means we can’t expect AI to produce a hedonistic paradise where every human need is met by robot servants. Most organisms live close to the edge of survival, eking out an existence as best they can. Many humans today do live more comfortable and prosperous lives, but evolutionary history suggests that AI could disrupt this. The fundamental reason is competition.
AI is also likely to advance incrementally. Rather than a pure robot civilization springing up de novo, it’s more likely that AI will integrate itself into things that already exist in our world. The resulting hybrid entities could take many forms; imagine, for example, a company with a human owner but machine-based operations and research.
Hopefully some possible futures include an ecological niche for humans. After all, some things that humans need , machines do not. Maybe we can convince them to go out into the solar system to mine the outer planets and harvest the sun’s energy. And leave the Earth to us.