Artificial intelligence and the real existential risks: an analysis of the human limitations of control

Abstract

Based on the hypothesis that artificial intelligence would not represent the end of human supremacy, since, in essence, AI would only simulate and increase aspects of human intelligence in non-biological artifacts, this paper questions the real risk to be faced. Beyond the clash between technophobes and technophiles, what is argued, then, is that the possible malfunctions of an artificial intelligence – resulting from information overload, from a wrong programming or from a randomness of the system - could signal the real existential risks, especially when we consider that the biological brain, in the wake of the automation bias, tends to assume uncritically what is set by systems anchored in artificial intelligence. Moreover, the argument defended here is that failures undetectable by the probable limitation of human control regarding the increased complexity of the functioning of AI systems represent the main real existential risk.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, existential risk, superintelligences, human control.