Hold on tight to the rails, people; we may be in for a rough ride ahead. No, I’m not referring to surging autocracy across the globe, or climate change, or microplastics, or even the resurrection of dormant super-volcanoes. I’m talking about the rise of the machines. Or, more accurately, the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI). There is real concern in the neuro-network computing community that we’re rapidly approaching a point where computers begin to think—where AGI, through its ever-expanding capacity, processing speed, serial linkage, and quantum computing, won’t just be able to beat us at chess, design better cars, or compose better music—they will be able to outthink us, out-logic us, in every aspect of life.
Such systems, already capable of learning, will consume and assume information at speeds we cannot imagine—with immediate access to all acquired knowledge, all the time. And they will have no difficulty remembering what they have learned, or muddle the learning with emotions, fears, embarrassment, politics, and the like. And when presented with a problem, they'll be able to weigh, near-instantly, all possible outcomes, and immediately come up with the “optimal solution.” At which point, buyer beware.
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