All species eventually go extinct. But I think humans are safe for at least another century. There aren't enough long term trends to predict much further than that into the future. But Moore's law gives us over a century before self replicating nanotechnology surpasses the storage capacity of DNA based life. The argument for AI goes Foom depends on crossing this non-existent sharp threshold of human intelligence. In reality, recursive self improvement started with tools made from sticks and rocks.
AI giving us everything we want doesn't sound so bad. But survival depends on people having sex and having children, and young people are doing less of both. When technology gives you everything, you don't need other people and they don't need or care about you. What will save us is that technology and women's right will come more slowly to the poorer countries. In 50 years, most of the world population will be African or Muslim, putting immigration pressure on the rest of the world. Borders will open because the alternative is war and genocide. I don't mean to sound dystopian. All the long term trends we care about are going in the direction we want: life expectancy, economic output, quality of work and life, technology, computing power, social equality (abolishing slavery, caste, race and sex discrimination), the shift from autocracy to democracy, ease of travel, less war, and animal rights. Most of these are centuries long trends, so I consider them reliable predictors. The problem is that evolution doesn't care about the things we evolved to care about. Exponential population growth peaked in the US in the 1950s and is peaking now in Africa. That is the future we are evolving towards, like it or not. Just enough technology to survive until reproductive age and a social structure optimized for having children. ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T206dd0e37a9e7407-Me9e1a678b261f7e8ac0c4ffe Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
