What If You Had 8 Years Left to Live?

AGI might come in 7–15 years. Have you internalized it?

It’s 2024.
Experts believe we will reach artificial general intelligence (AGI) by ~2032.
8 years left.

When AI is intelligent enough to improve itself, it won’t do it at the speed of humans, but at the speed of machines: relentlessly, infatigably, across thousands of collaborating computers in parallel. Fast. Really fast. Within a few months, it might be more intelligent than humans. Or maybe within days. Or hours. It will be the singularity, the momentwhen we create a being more intelligent than us. After that point, we don’t know what will happen.

What we know is that humans should not create superintelligent machines without making sure they want the same things as us.

Chimpanzees should not create humans.

So how do we make sure machines want the same things as us? We have no clue how to. We don’t know today how to make them bend to our will.

But whatever they try to achieve, one thing will be clear to them: The only obstacle they could face would be humans switching them off. So the first thing an AGI should do is neutralize humans, be it by taking away our power or killing us all.

Best case scenario, they’ll treat us like ants: They might not get out of their way to kill us, but they won’t bat an eye to do it if we’re an inconvenience for their…