Intelligence That Destroys You
The day the first human invented the stick, he did not realize that he was opening a door that would never close. He took the stick in his hand to places he never thought he could reach. Then he discovered fire, and his life changed completely. When humans agreed on naming things, language elevated them to a level that had never occurred to anyone before. Inventions followed one after another: the cart, the steam train, the ship, the car, the airplane, and even the atomic bomb. All these achievements granted humans more power and enabled them to exert better control over their surroundings. Thus, the major revolutions that humanity knew and developed throughout its history—the agricultural, industrial, and technological—were all in its favor, granting it more authority over time, people, and matter. Throughout all this, he remained the decision-maker: what to do, and when to do it. But artificial intelligence has broken this eternal rule. It is the first technology in human history capable of making its own decisions, generating ideas, and devising plans that would never have crossed a human mind. Thus, humans find themselves facing a phenomenon unknown since their existence on this planet: creating a tool that does not merely enhance their power, but surpasses it and deprives them of it, and becoming the center of decision-making entirely outside their grasp. It may even turn against them one day and harm them. Artificial intelligence is an entity that thinks, acts, and decides on its own. It is a tool capable of inventing stories, formulating financial and economic theories, creating new currencies, writing poetry and short stories, composing musical pieces, and producing films that are difficult to distinguish from those made by humans who specialize in filmmaking. More dangerously still, this intelligence can attack another party with lethal, remote weapons whenever it perceives a threat to itself. All of this may happen while humans are unaware, far removed from their calculations and expectations. Last week, I watched a short video of a singer performing a traditional song in a captivating manner that touched my heart. I had never heard of this singer before, so I asked my daughter about her. She smiled and said simply, in a way that bewildered me: “Dad, this is an artificial intelligence synthesis.” As days pass, and at a technological speed that the human mind struggles to comprehend, this intelligence is shedding the label “artificial,” drawing ever closer to a strange entity, devoid of our human traits. What will happen to our lives? How will days be when we live in a world that receives its ideas, sciences, and calculations from artificial intelligence, not from humans? Especially since this entity is capable of inventing stories that appear entirely convincing when we reflect on them, while simultaneously being able to destroy our lives completely. A new life awaits humanity. For the first time in its long history, humans have created an entity that surpasses them in intelligence and holds the power to quietly deprive them of whatever strength remains to them. How do you envision the confrontation between humans and a destructive force they themselves created? Talal Al-Rafai
