Artificial Intelligence: Is the end really near?

Front pages, including the Review-Journal, and TV news alerts have reported on fears that humanity is on the edge of extinction caused by Artificial Intelligence. (AI.)

AI experts, nerdy whistle-blowers, doomsday-obsessed politicians, media disaster news teams, podcasters, Tik-Tokers, influencers of the easily influenced and other cravers of attention are warning that mankind may only have a decade — or less — to put our affairs in order before the end.

Warnings that the “The End is Near” have been popular attention grabbers at least since Chicken Little took to the barnyard with the panicked prognostication of a falling sky.

It was only seven years ago that a U.S. Congressperson from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, (AOC), advised humanity that our time on earth would end in 12 years thanks to global warming. Long before AOC could legally drink in a bar —let alone bartend — American politician Al Gore, revealed the inconvenient truth from the steps of his fossil-fuel-filled jet that humanity was doomed by fossil fuels.

Anyone who has seen the Oscar-winning movie “Oppenheimer” knows about the prospect of humanity’s end from nuclear bombs. The geniuses who built the first nuke in New Mexico were worried that a nuclear explosion might ignite a chain reaction that would ignite the atmosphere. A runaway nuke would not just put an end to humanity, it would destroy the entire earth — maybe the universe.

So, AI isn’t our first rodeo when it comes to existential threats of human extinction.

There remain few, if any, who still believe that we will be wiped out by global warming in five years, and the ongoing existence of the Blue Firmament above has severely damaged Chicken Little’s credibility. As to nuke “atmosphere ignition” we found, before nukes were tested in Nevada, that the catastrophic “near zero” possibility of the end of the world was in fact zero.

But what about AI? Do we need to take the AI “end is near” warning more seriously than the prior warnings of the end from new technological and/or destructive human behavior?

The AI warnings come from smart people on the level of Einstein, Oppenheimer and others of that ilk. Bill Gates recently stated AI could wipe out one billion people. Einstein and Bill Gates are clearly on the opposite end of the intelligence spectrum from AOC, and any chicken — big or little. Other geniuses have also confirmed that AI does indeed pose a significant potential risk to humanity. Perhaps fear of AI is more rational than global warming hysteria or falling sky panic or even fear of nuclear annihilation.

But not even the geniuses are saying exactly how AI will wipe us out and what we must do to stop the genocide. It doesn’t sound like controlling AI is easy — even for the nerds who created it. At least with global warming the experts told us exactly what to do. Ban outdoor barbecues, gas stoves, internal combustion engines, restrict livestock flatulence and build and require use of wind farms, solar panels and electric cars.

Not so with AI. The politicians who seize any opportunity to control the public with fear of “existential crisis” are even more clueless than the nerds. Will the end be a Matrix or Terminator scenario?

There remain many questions about AI ending humanity. How much time do we have? How will AI do us in? How can we save ourselves? Is Arnold Schwarzenegger still spry enough to save us from destruction?

Not easy questions to answer. But at least now we can ask Alexa and Siri and Claude.

Philip S. Bovee is an attorney and writer who has lived in Pahrump since 2023. Contact him at psbovee@gmail.com