You can see where all this is heading - humans, with their mortality, are getting swamped by AI ORGs, which don't die. We are literally living in the last days of humanity's reign on earth as the supreme being.

Here's an interesting talk given by Stephen Fry that touches on that. He presents some good observations and questions that, though perhaps not entirely new, do shine a new light on the state of things.

I think the thing that's lost on a lot of people ushering in this baton-change is that AI could/almost certainly will turn on it's handlers at some point - & there won't be a thing they can do about it.

I think we've already crossed that point not because AI has us over a barrel and the situation is hopeless, but rather because we're in an AI arms race, both figuratively and literally. The human condition is such that we can't even, as a species, agree on how to address problems that WILL eventually destroy us, i.e. climate change, nuclear weapons, dependence on consumerism, dependence on production, the failing international monetary system, etc. It's the combination of AI and greed that will do us in. If the greed and power structure weren't there, AI would be a great thing.

Imagine, for a moment, if somehow as a species we managed to evolve so that as individuals we spent our day concerned more with others' well being than our own. Imagine if we found comfort in knowing those around us were OK, and in fact that was our main source of comfort, even happiness.

I think that's possible, and I think that's the only thing that will save us from this, that type of evolution. It's not something that can be legislated; in fact, if we were to reach that level of development, we wouldn't need any governments, or nations. Governments and nations serve to protect and preserve the wealth of the wealthy and powerful, and that's it. It's always been that way. There's no other reason for them in spite of what we're told. If all the governments ceased to exist tomorrow, along with all the weapons, we might just realize how much we're all alike.

Governments started with what? Kings and Queens! Right? Rulers who wanted to control their subjects. Nothing has changed.

But if we are able to reach that level of development where we live first for others and maintain our own health so that we can serve others, this could truly be a wonderful little planet, heaven on earth. It's possible.

In the meantime, back to reality. AI is going to present problems because it's being used by a species that is technologically advanced but is still focused on self, and that's a tough one.

Here's an observation. I don't write code (well, I write damn good html and css, but purists wouldn't consider that code), but I can read and understand some of it.

AI can now write code really well, and that ability, or function rather (the word 'ability' in this case is anthropomorphic), raises real questions I don't think are being discussed widely. I know it can write perfect HTML and CSS, and as far as I can tell pretty darn good javascript, php, and python. And this all happened very quickly and it's developing very quickly. And it will have many effects.

AI will be writing algorithms that make second-by-second decisions (another anthropomorphism) about how we're treated as individuals in all aspects of our life. We've seen how it's taking over warfare.

But my thought is this -- won't it just write it's own coding language? Isn't that perhaps already happened? Maybe it has. I've never looked into it.

But once AI starts creating it's own code, literally, from the ground floor up, from a new language, surely multiple coding languages, that it creates and no human knows. Wow, then we're truly fucked.