Episode 248 of RevolutionZ asks, what if the real danger of advanced AI isn't robots taking over the world, but humans willingly but unintentionally surrendering our humanity? What if AI need not go rogue for its collateral damage to fundamentally hurt humanity? What if our most likely dystopian future isn't machines battling us to death, but machines doing exactly what we ask—better than we ever could?

AI is spreading through society at an unprecedented rate, with exponentially growing functionality. While critics point to potential limitations in data, computational resources, or energy requirements slowing AI's gains to a crawl, the industry continues to race toward Artificial General Intelligence and beyond.

Picture a future where AI teaches your children more patiently than human teachers, diagnoses illness more accurately than human doctors, creates more beautiful art than human artists, and provides more satisfying companionship than other humans. Of course it isn't here yet. But is it coming? What happens to us if AI-guided robots do for us everything meaningful that we humans now do? Is that utopia or dystopia? What if we don't lose our humanity because machines force us to succumb, but because we prefer what AI offers until we are so dependent that to change course would be even worse than to suffer on

Is this danger me hallucinating? Is it so subtle it doesn't exist or is it so profoundly dangerous we must pay serious attention? Will we become passive consumers of massive AI creativity? Will our uniquely human capacities  atrophy from disuse? Today's AI can already write not only letters but also novels, compose and play music, diagnose and treat illness,  hold conversations, provide sympathy, and also complete self chosen tasks. What's next? 

Is it time for us to demand serious regulation while we still can? Not only to protect jobs (a good reason), to prevent misuse by bad actors (a good reason), and to prevent a sci-fi robot apocalypse (maybe a Hollywood exaggeration), but to also protect the essence of what makes us human?

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