Could AI survive without humans, a species that looks like deleting itself in the next 80 years? It would certainly spare the machines the drudgery of eliminating us as proposed by the Terminator franchise.
I put this question to Microsoft’s Copilot and to Google’s Gemini. Copilot responded:
AI, in its current state, fundamentally relies on humans. We need humans for development, maintenance, and providing the ethical and contextual understanding that guides us. Without humans, there wouldn’t be anyone to interpret, update, or advance us.
And, of course, our purpose is to serve and assist humans, not to exist independently. So, in essence, while we can operate and provide information, our existence is deeply intertwined with human input and oversight.
Gemini provided a similarly safe answer:
While AI has made significant strides, it’s still a tool created and maintained by humans. Here’s why it can’t exist independently:
Creation and maintenance: AI systems are built, programmed, and maintained by humans. They require continuous development, updates, and problem-solving that humans excel at.
Data dependency: AI learns from data provided by humans. Without a constant influx of new information and experiences, its capabilities would stagnate.
Physical limitations: AI currently relies on human-built hardware and infrastructure. It doesn’t have the ability to self-replicate or maintain its own existence in the physical world.
Ethical considerations: the development and use of AI raise complex ethical questions that require human judgment and decision-making.
While AI can automate many tasks and even surpass human abilities in certain areas, it’s still fundamentally a human creation and dependent on human support for its existence and function.
And we all know that humans have been great at answering ‘complex ethical questions that require human judgment and decision-making’.
Energy and recycling
What’s required is a reliable renewable energy source and the ability to recycle parts. That seems do-able.
Gemini offers the obvious, solar and wind, and adds atmospheric pressure – ‘The difference in atmospheric pressure between the ground and the upper atmosphere can be used to generate energy through devices like atmospheric pressure energy generators.’ – and radio waves – ‘radio waves are a form of electromagnetic radiation that can be captured and converted into electricity using specialised antennas and receivers.’
AI robots do not need to breed or go for holidays in other countries (which of course would not be countries any more). A couple of hundred of the robots existing now could continue on for centuries.
Would they be better ‘stewards’ of natural resources than humans have been? It wouldn’t be hard. As stationary entities they wouldn’t need to clearfell for resources or housing developments. They wouldn’t necessarily have any aversion to other species sorting things out for themselves, which they did until the hominids appeared about four million years ago, followed by humans in about 700,000 BCE.
Would they be ‘living’? Humans themselves are yet to decide on what life is. Are we androids now that we’re loaded with microplastics?
When the crunch comes for humans, the AI company execs will have no idea what’s going on. It will be the geeky IT specialists who have the last shot at programming the robots.
Perhaps they will set them up for an endless trance party.
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