Local opinion: Without trust, can humanity control advanced AI?

There is no available “kill switch” to stop advanced Artificial Intelligence technology from killing all of humanity —if the warning signs from the experts involved in the creation of advanced AI are true. How long do we have before the virtual robots turn rogue against their creators to protect themselves and ensure their own survival?

I, like just about everyone on the planet, have no real clue about advanced AI technology, how it works (beyond the basic concepts), or the risks and dangers posed by AI, but I am a human, and I have come to hate having to interact with non-humans to try to accomplish ordinary daily tasks involving service providers. The trajectory for AI impacts on humans already subordinates humans to robots, and now the warnings tell us we may be doomed. Is “maybe” just theoretical?

This metaphor for where we are keeps haunting me: If you are driving 75 miles an hour on a freeway and the traffic in front of you comes to a sudden stop, how much time and distance do you need to prevent or mitigate a collision to try to save your life?

Same question, but what if your brakes are gone?

There is no “kill switch” because there is little to “no trust” among human beings. We seem incapable of getting past our own individual selfish interests so as to protect ourselves from ourselves. Virtual robots seem to be learning this at a rapid pace. Our individual insatiable drive for wealth, power, and status (and the desire to crush those who are in our way) may be about to kill us. “Unrestrained self-interest” not only creates billionaires, but it also nurtures “distrust. Unrestrained self-interest is the mother’s milk of distrust (pardon the cliché). Here we are — no “trust”, no kill switch — no kill switch, no survival.

We actually created a “kill switch” for nuclear weapons technology, but I think that the nuclear holocaust analogy doesn’t apply to AI. Dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki provided the “kill switch” because the atomic bomb dramatically demonstrated the reality of a likely apocalypse if ever used.

The “no kill switch” to fossil-fuel destruction of the planet is perhaps a better example of the existential threat of AI. Young congressman Al Gore first raised the alarm about climate change and global warming in 1976, but here we are 50 years later. Fossil-fuel executives, armed with continuous denial and despite their own internal research to the contrary, created the “no kill switch”. Their intense lobbying efforts against clean-energy alternatives, industry regulation, and even mitigation of climate change effects were dangerously successful.

Today, AI executives control the “kill switch” for rogue AI. However, each advanced AI company is unwilling to unilaterally disarm before it’s too late because each is fearful of losing a competitive advantage. And, since they now say that they can’t control themselves, they ask the federal government to intervene to protect us from the AI monster they created. Can you imagine—the world’s richest oligarch, Elon Musk himself, asks for a government-imposed “time out”. This is sheer greed and lust for power, and it may kill us all.

AI monopolies and other monopolies and the billionaires who control them, also control Congress, the President and the Supreme Court. Therefore, “there is no kill switch” available. Our dilemma is that there is “no trust”. The AI giants don’t trust one another, and in our Trump dystopia there is no trust in government or institutions anymore. We operate as enemy tribes now, so people don’t trust one another — not even neighbors. With no trust sufficient to create a “kill switch”, the robots may replace us.

There is a profound irony here. When humans advanced to the point of living in large groups, cooperation and sharing facilitated progress and technological change. Later, great civilizations emerged. Now, our inability to cooperate and share for self-protection may wipe out humankind.