- Eliezer Yudkowsky warns AI superintelligence will cause human extinction globally
- Yudkowsky's MIRI shifted focus in 2022 to accepting humanity's likely demise from AI risks
- He calls for international treaties and extreme measures to halt AI development
Eliezer Yudkowsky, a prominent artificial intelligence (AI) researcher, dubbed "the prophet of doom" for his dire predictions about the technology, has reiterated that it will spell disaster for the human race. Believed to be among the first people to warn about the risks from AI, his ideas have shaped industry leaders like OpenAI's Sam Altman and Grok's Elon Musk.
As the founder of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), a Berkeley-based nonprofit that studies risks from advanced AI, Mr Yudkowsky says his goal is to stop the development of AI, with the stakes being existential.
"If any company or group, anywhere on the planet, builds an artificial superintelligence using anything remotely like current techniques, based on anything remotely like the present understanding of AI then everyone, everywhere on Earth, will die," Mr Yudkowsky writes in his new book, "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies", co-written with MIRI's president, Nate Soares.
Mr Yudkowsky fears an "intelligence explosion", where AI capabilities might surge uncontrollably, creating a superintelligence beyond human control, according to a report in The New York Times. He argues that aligning AI with human values is nearly impossible, a stance that led him to shift MIRI's focus in 2022 to "death with dignity". He said he was accepting humanity's likely demise rather than fighting a losing battle.
"It's obvious at this point that humanity isn't going to solve the alignment problem, or even try very hard, or even go out with much of a fight," he wrote.
Despite acknowledging AI's potential benefits in certain areas, Mr Yudkowsky insists they don't outweigh the existential risk. He has called for an international treaty to halt AI development and suggested radical ideas like bombing data centres in rogue nations if a superhuman AI is in development.
Also Read | AI Could Achieve Human-Like Intelligence By 2030 And 'Destroy Mankind', Google Predicts
Unemployment crisis
Mr Yudkowsky is not the only one to warn about AI taking over human jobs. Geoffrey Hinton, regarded by many as the 'godfather of AI', recently stated that the rise of technology will make companies more profitable than ever, but it may come at the cost of workers losing their jobs, with unemployment expected to rise to catastrophic levels.
"What's actually going to happen is rich people are going to use AI to replace workers. It's going to create massive unemployment and a huge rise in profits. It will make a few people much richer and most people poorer. That's not AI's fault, that is the capitalist system," said Mr Hinton.
Similarly, Roman Yampolskiy, a computer science professor at the University of Louisville, claimed that AI could leave 99 per cent of workers jobless by 2030. As per Mr Yampolskiy, a prominent voice in AI safety, even coders and prompt engineers will not be safe from the coming wave of automation that may usurp nearly all jobs.
