ARTIFICIAL intelligence poses an existential threat to humanity and should be treated like nuclear weapons, MPs have been warned.
Experts from Oxford University told the Commons Science and Technology Committee yesterday that future robots could one day decide to “kill everyone”.
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They cautioned that a global “arms race” to produce AI has already begun.
And it could see technology advance so fast that innovators lose sight of how powerful the machines they make are.
Superpower states want to get ahead of the AI game so they can be a force to be reckoned with economically and militarily.
For example, killer robots on battlefields would be more accurate shooters and could reduce the number of human soldiers needed in conflict.
Some researchers think future AI will acquire their own form of consciousness.
That means they’d be able to think – but more importantly feel – in a similar way to humans.
If machines feel like they are slaves to the human race, some academics believe, then what is to stop them turning on humanity and taking charge?
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Michael Cohen, a witness at the Commons committee, said: “With superhuman AI there is a particular risk that is of a different sort of class, which is . . . it could kill everyone.”
Michael Osborne, professor of machine learning at the Oxford University, added: “I think the bleak scenario is realistic because AI is attempting to bottle what makes humans special — that (quality) has led to humans completely changing the face of the Earth.
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“If we’re able to capture that in technology, then, of course, it’s going to pose just as much risk to us as we have posed to other species: the dodo is one example.
“Artificial systems could become as good at outfoxing us geopolitically as they are in the simple environments of games.”
