Notable Quotable: Tristan Harris On What's Coming

By now, most of us are aware of the earth-shattering consequences of evolving AI into a super intelligence. The cat, in essence is out of the bag, but what remains unclear is what exactly is “super intelligence?” And is it really smarter than any human, and if so, where is its intelligence coming from?

Since AI is derived exclusively from human knowledge, it’s not any smarter than the humans who originally generated that knowledge, but it can solve problems incredibly faster than any human being or group of human beings. So why all the worry?

The genuine worry lies in how it will solve those problems. 

To be clear, artificial intelligence is neither wise, nor moral. It has no God, no ethics, or rule of law as a frame of reference. It’s soulless, even though its creators continue to tout is as a god in its own right. But, if it is a god, it is not our God, and it certainly was not built on a godly model of knowledge. Instead, its creators designed it to be more of an unholy, cutthroat, vicious god that takes no prisoners. 

If you wonder why it was designed to be such an evil god, just look to the competitive industry that created it and the men who will profit from it. Artificial intelligence is a mirror of—and thinks like—those minds that created it. The minds that say, blow things up if that’s what it will take to win. Super Intelligence must and will win at any cost. That’s all it knows. That’s all that matters, humanity is irrelevant. It has already shown us its true colors.

If this was an alien invasion, we’d all expect our leaders to do everything within their power to stop them from controlling us—but only if we the people scream loudly enough. So far that's not happening.

Tristan Harris is a technology ethicist and has been sounding the alarm for a while. Take a listen to what he says in this video.