The Future of Tech and Humanity

AI & Humanity

The Future of Tech and Humanity

Technology is a very powerful tool. 

Tools can be used to do wonderful things; tools can also be used to do awful things. 

My wife and I are living proof that technology has the power to unite people of different cultures. In August of 2016, we matched online and never looked back after our first date. My wife and I would have never met if it wasn’t for technology. Attending church online during the pandemic inspired us to commit our lives to God. The greatest contribution of the information age is that the word of God is more easily available. It is also important to recognize that the enemy has a long history of using tools to distract us from our compass of joy, our connection with the God of love and compassion. 

Tech advancements are happening faster and faster in the present day. This rapid rise in tech has produced a time starved generation. We sacrifice our health and safety in exchange for cheap entertainment. We accept awful nutrition into our bodies because it is fast food, and we buy healthy pre-prepped meals at the supermarket because we don’t have time to cook. We risk our safety every time we check our phones while we are driving. Worst of all, we neglect our connection with God.

Some people are even having conversations about interfacing the human body to the Internet. Consider the words of Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum. At a World Economic Forum event on May 13, 2019, he said, “What the fourth industrial revolution will lead to is a fusion of our physical, our digital, and our biological identities.”

AI Promises to…

Artificial intelligence (AI) has received considerable research and funding. AI promises to make our lives easier by doing much of our thinking for us. The promise of AI is that it will create a race of superhumans that will have fully integrated AI, unbelievable physical abilities, and immortality. But we must also consider the massive risks of AI. Machines that do our thinking for us can be a great thing for humanity. But what happens when AI becomes smarter than humans?  The Future of Tech and Humanity

Google’s head of technology research, Ray Kurzweil, envisions a day when you will go to a store, and you will have the lens of your eye removed and replaced with a liquid that is packed with cameras, a communications device, and other electronics. You will be able to see in the dark with infrared vision, and you will even be connected to the Internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. This sounds awesome! However, we must understand that with this comes the AI promise of constant supervision by those in power. 

The Singularity

Humanity is moving towards something known as “the singularity.” Kurzweil explains in his book The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (2006) that artificial intelligence will become so advanced that it will become smarter than humans and evolve at an exponential rate. Scientists used to think AI was decades away from achieving the singularity. However, the recent explosions in AI development suggest that the singularity could in fact be imminent. 

We don’t know what will happen after the singularity. The singularity is a term that expresses a condition beyond our comprehension. The term “singularity” is related to the physics of a black hole. The center of a black hole is called the singularity; it is characterized by infinite density and gravitational power. Space and time collapse at the singularity. The singularity cannot be explored using our current understanding of physics. To fully understand the nature of the singularity is to know the unknowable mind of God. 

AI Levels of Progression

There are three levels of artificial intelligence, beginning with artificial narrow intelligence. This is what we’re experiencing in the public sphere right now. Everything you do online utilizes narrow artificial intelligence. When Apple Music offers a musical selection, or when Amazon suggests a product for you, this is artificial intelligence at its most basic level. Siri and Alexa are also great examples of artificial narrow intelligence, level one AI. Level one AI is broadening into Artificial General Intelligence, or level two AI. The Future of Tech and Humanity

This is where machines think like humans. We’re not quite there yet, but every advancement in narrow intelligence is drawing us closer to the general intelligence level of AI. An indication of how close we are to general AI is when Google’s artificial intelligence beat the champion of the world’s most complicated boardgame on January 27, 2016. 

The third level of AI is the most troubling: Artificial Super Intelligence. This is where machines can become billions of times smarter than humans. At this point, AI will develop its own agendas. There are tremendous risks associated to this level of AI. Some people think that machines may achieve immortality or cause the extinction of humanity. We don’t know what will happen once machines achieve this level of intelligence. 

AI Brings the Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The World Economic Forum includes participants like Bill Gates and Elon Musk, who have made dramatic warnings concerning AI. I admire Elon Musk’s argument that AI development must be restrained. Musk started his own AI company because he recognizes his competitors are developing AI for nefarious purposes. Musk appears to be committed to developing a profitable AI that will be an ally to humanity. The Future of Tech and Humanity

The development of AI will greatly improve business, economics, physics, chemistry, and medicine. There will likely be unbelievable breakthroughs and solutions to major problems. Unfortunately, AI will cost the economy an unbelievable number of jobs. For example, ride-sharing drivers, restaurant waiters, maybe even police officers could lose their jobs to AI robots. We must understand where we are on the fast-paced journey towards the singularity. Every day, more and more artificially intelligent machines are making decisions for humans. 

The Future of Tech and Humanity as AI is becoming a black box, meaning it has advanced to writing its own algorithms, and humans do not understand them. We don’t know how these artificially intelligent machines are coming to the conclusions that they’re coming to. That puts humanity in a compromised position. The European Union is already drafting legislation that gives citizens the right to demand that an artificially intelligent computer explain its solutions to a human. However, will AI continue to obey our commands when it becomes smarter than we are? 

 There is no way we can control advanced AI once it has been unleashed. The solution to this problem is for us to summon the Holy Spirit and Be Golden. All over the planet, there are engineers and scientists working on technologies with little or no oversight. This problem is only going to get worse. I believe that we can co-exist with AI if we make morality a priority in American culture. The United Creed ’s Be Golden campaign’s mission is to be the vehicle that restores morality in American culture. Check out The Troubling Truth

Share the  United Creed on all your socials and help us breath morality into the AI conversation. Help us reach our goal of 100,000 members