Threat To Humanity: Doctors and public health experts call for ban on AI, warn it can be used as WMD

Almost a month after tech experts claimed that AI could to the destruction of humanity and that the development of AI should be halted, medical professionals and public health experts from the world over have also put out a statement saying the same.

Several medical professionals and health policy experts from all around the world have recently made a renewed appeal to put a stop to the progress of artificial intelligence (AI) due to its potential to pose an ‘existential threat’ to mankind.

According to a team of five experts, there are three ways in which AI can cause the annihilation of humans.

AI Singularity will lead to mass destruction, say doctors and medical professionals
This statement comes just a month or so after more than a thousand scientists, including John Hopfield from Princeton and Rachel Branson from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and historian Yuval Noah Harari signed a letter urging the cessation of AI research for similar reasons.

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It is worth noting that current text-based AI resources, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, do not present the catastrophic risks that the health policy experts are referring to.

The first risk is that AI may assist in amplifying authoritarian tactics, such as the use of surveillance and misinformation. They point out that AI’s capability to rapidly clean, categorize, and analyze enormous amounts of personal data, including images captured by the increasingly ubiquitous presence of cameras, could make it easier for authoritarian or totalitarian regimes to ascend and remain in power.

Furthermore, the group of experts cautioned that AI could expedite mass slaughter by enlarging the application of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS).

Finally, the medical professionals expressed apprehension about the potential for severe economic devastation and human suffering, as millions of people lose their jobs to AI-driven automation. The authors noted that predictions of job losses caused by AI automation vary from tens to hundreds of millions in the next decade.

The group, led by a physician associated with the International Institute for Global Health at United Nations University, emphasized that their most severe warnings apply to an exceedingly advanced and still hypothetical form of artificial intelligence: self-improving general-purpose AI (AGI).

AGI or AI Singularity
Unlike current AI, AGI would have the capacity to truly learn and modify its own code, enabling it to perform a wide range of tasks that only humans can do today. In their commentary, the medical experts contend that such an AGI ‘could theoretically learn how to surpass any constraints in its code and start developing its own objectives.’

“There are scenarios where AGI could present a threat to humans, and possibly an existential threat,” the experts said in their statement, “by intentionally or unintentionally causing harm directly or indirectly, by attacking or subjugating humans or by disrupting the systems or using up resources we depend on.”

The health policy experts’ commentary, published in the British Medical Association journal BMJ Global Health, emphasized that although such a threat may be several decades away, there are many possibilities for the abuse of AI technology at its current level.

Governments will abuse AI, weaponise it
The authors described how governments and other large organizations might use AI to automate complex tasks of mass surveillance and digital disinformation campaigns, which could pose threats to ‘democracy, liberty, and privacy.’

Regarding mass surveillance, they cited China’s Social Credit System as an example of a state tool used to ‘control and oppress’ human populations.

In the case of digital disinformation, the authors warned that when combined with the increasingly sophisticated ability to distort or misrepresent reality with deepfakes, AI-driven information systems may exacerbate social division and conflict, leading to public health repercussions by causing a general breakdown of trust and undermining democracy.

AI and Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems or LAWS
The authors outlined the potential dangers posed to ‘peace and public safety,’ highlighting the development of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS) that resemble the T-800 Endoskeleton from the Terminator films. According to these experts, LAWS would be able to identify, select, and engage human targets entirely on their own.

The authors note that these weapons could be produced in large quantities at a low cost and set up to kill on an industrial scale. For instance, a million tiny drones fitted with explosives, visual recognition capabilities, and autonomous navigational abilities could be programmed to kill and contained in a standard shipping container.

AI destroying the concept of jobs
Lastly, the researchers discussed the likelihood of impoverishment and suffering caused by the ‘widespread deployment of AI technology,’ emphasizing the possibility of ‘tens to hundreds of millions’ of individuals losing their jobs.

“While there would be many benefits from ending work that is repetitive, dangerous and unpleasant,” these medical professionals wrote, “we already know that unemployment is strongly associated with adverse health outcomes and behaviour.”

The authors of the commentary referred to a survey conducted among members of the AI society, in which 18% of respondents believed that the development of advanced AGI would be catastrophic for humanity. Additionally, half of the members surveyed predicted that AGI would be created sometime between 2040 and 2065.

Similar warnings were issued by Silicon Valley researchers last month, including DeepAI founder Kevin Baragona. Baragona compared the potential conflict between humans and AGI to a war between chimps and humans, stating that humans would win due to their greater intelligence and access to advanced technology.

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