I’m going to be contributing regularly to the Times of London going forward, reporting on, among other topics, Artificial Intelligence.

I’m new to the subject and I don’t know if I’m entirely persuaded that the end of the world is nigh, but I do think that those who anticipate human extinction at the hands of super intelligent AI have a very compelling case and I take it seriously. I have yet to find a rigorous argument against it.

Even short of extinction, though, the dystopian prospects of developing synthetic minds that far surpass our own are endless. When you start investigating the possibilities, it begins to look like the most unlikely, sci-fi ending to this story is that everything is the same but better, which is the outcome that our government is banking on. I’m not sure how replacing all of our jobs and making humans obsolete to the economy and to some extent to one another can possibly end well, but I’m open to hearing the argument of how that can happen — in fact, I’ve been actively searching for it.

Science fiction is fun because it allows you to construct thought experiments to stress test our existing social structures and forces. But we’re in the surreal circumstance now in which contemplating these scenarios isn’t just a fun hobby. I would argue that it’s literally the most important thing we can be doing right now, as a species. If our imagination fails us, we’ll be that much less prepared for a radically different near-term future that will deeply transform all of our lives, for better or for worse.

I’m going to explore a lot of these possibilities both at the Times of London and here on Social Studies. I invite you to take a look at my first article on it for the Times.

—LW

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