Persuasive Essay Example: Artificial Intelligence is Dangerous to Humanity

Christopher Strachey creates the first artificial intelligence program at Oxford University in 1951. This achievement proves the concept of Artificial Intelligence. This AI was not as advanced or futuristic as we originally thought. We got closer to our futuristic AI goals, but now scientists are debating whether AI is a threat to human beings. I, for one, believe that AI is a threat, and could grow to be much more intelligent than humans and outsmart us. Another way AI can be destructive is by using destructive methods to achieve goals. These reasons are dangerous and a threat to humans.

An example of how AI is dangerous is outsmarting humans. AI has very advanced learning algorithms. They are complex and go beyond the human brain’s cognition. “The long-term goal of many researchers is to create general AI (AGI or strong AI). While narrow AI may outperform humans at whatever its specific task is, like playing chess or solving equations, AGI would outperform humans at nearly every cognitive task.” Future of Life Institute explains in their article “Benefits and Risks of Artificial Intelligence “Because of the learning algorithms, AI can outsmart us and become dominant.

Additionally, AI can perform destructive methods. We built AI to be goal-oriented. For the AI to reach its goals, it can use dangerous methods. For example, if you ask an AI to bring you and your car to the airport as quickly as possible, you may end up being followed by helicopters and covered in vomit. “If a super-intelligent system is tasked with an ambitious geoengineering project, it might wreak havoc with our ecosystem as a side effect, and view human attempts to stop it as a threat to be met.” Future of Life Institute explains in their article “Benefits and Risks of Artificial Intelligence” Because of AI’s destructive methods, AI might end up ruining our planet.

To conclude, I firmly believe AI is a threat to humanity. AI can easily outsmart humans' thinking way beyond our minds, which can be dangerous. Additionally, AI can use destructive methods even to achieve productive goals. WE should immediately stop working on large-scale AI and maybe focus on more safe AI for smaller tasks.