What happens if AI grows smarter than humans? The answer worries scientists.
With each iteration, Singularity gets more invincible—and dangerous. Warner Bros. In 1993, computer scientist and sci-fi author Vernor Vinge predicted that within three decades, we would have the technology to create a form of intelligence that surpasses our own. “Shortly after, the human era will be ended,” Vinge said As it happens, 30 years later, the idea of an artificially created entity that can surpass—or at least match—human capabilities is no longer the domain of speculators and authors. Ranks of AI researchers and tech investors are seeking what they call artificial general intelligence (AGI): an entity capable of human-level performance at all kinds of intellectual tasks. If humans produce a successful AGI, some researchers now believe, “the end of the human era” will no longer be a vague, distant possibility. [Related: No, the...