World at a crossroads: extinction or a new AI-enabled civilisation?

Amid war and climate change, the only hope may lie with machines that exceed human intelligence – but not every outcome will be desirable for us

Key-young Son

Published: 5:30pm, 31 Jan, 2024

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Wars, climate change and artificial intelligence (AI) were the three key concerns at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Across the world, there is a growing belief that AI will fundamentally change the way we live – if we live to see it. Yet climate change or nuclear war might also make it impossible for humans – or other creatures – to live on Earth.

In other words, we are at the crossroads of a mass extermination and the rise of a new civilisation. Some might say we are on the doorstep of a New Axial Age.

German philosopher Karl Jaspers coined the term, Axial Age, to describe the world’s transition from the Iron Age to classical antiquity and, especially, new religious revolutions in the first millennium BC. It was axial because the civilisational foundations of humanity were thought to have been laid in China, India, Persia, Judea and Greece simultaneously.

Neo-axialism is not new. The Renaissance, for instance, was an effort to revive and refine the ideas and achievements of classical antiquity, represented by the Greco-Roman period. Coupled with the Industrial Revolution, the cultural movement in the 15th and 16th centuries marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity.

The dawn of modernity brought about a profound transformation in the way we lived in most areas, encompassing art, architecture, literature, religion, politics, society, science and technology. The new age opened after the crisis of the Late Middle Ages, marked by the Great Famine, Black Death, Little Ice Age, Hundred Years’ War and decline of the Holy Roman Empire.

But our 21st century crisis is even bigger. Global warming and rising sea levels will wipe out significant portions of major cities across the world within the century. The extreme fluctuations between drought and flooding, or extreme weather like the winter storms that have been pummelling much of the United States and other countries, will make many parts of the Earth uninhabitable. Russia’s war on Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war could spill over and spread into much bigger wars involving the great powers.

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Most of all, the rise of AI-equipped machines, perhaps like those seen in the Terminator films, may threaten to hunt down all humans. Some foresee that around the 2040s, singularity will emerge: the point at which AI and other technologies surpass human intelligence.

This newly unfolding world may also be described as the “New Medieval Ages”, in which cities, not nation states, become the dominant centres of power and states are penetrated by supranational entities, such as the European Union or multinational corporate giants. Yet what we face in the 21st century is much bigger in magnitude.

This new age could see the emergence of a synthesised, human-machine civilisation, where humans directly interact with more intelligent machines to create everything we or they can imagine. This is a brave new world – that also presents much higher risks. If our transformation is hampered or unfolds in a way detrimental to humans, we could still face an end to humanity, because of environmental calamities, or even mercy killings by Terminator-like machines.

What shall we do in this new age? The race, it seems, has begun. Space travellers have started to explore the possibility of creating human colonies on the Moon or Mars. For those who enjoy sci-fi films, imagine going on an Interstellar-type spaceship or a giant Noah’s Ark.

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Some, like Saudi Arabia, have begun to build futuristic cities, incorporating AI and smart technology to offer a better lifestyle. Human intelligence alone, however, cannot guarantee the success of these projects. New lifestyles and even survival itself will, I believe, come increasingly to depend on machine minds exceeding human intelligence.

But not every scenario that follows such a development will be positive. The worst-case scenario is our extinction. Yet higher machine life could also doom us to a miserable existence, leading lives similar to that of chickens in factory farms – administered to by machines with higher intelligence that control our lifespan, health, reproduction and more.

We might be offered a new lease of life if we manage to keep intelligent machines friendly and on our side, keeping our dreams of progress and enlightenment alive. If the machines turn out to be as abusive as some humans can be, then our fate is sealed.

Key-young Son is vice-director and professor at the Asiatic Research Institute, Korea University