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Humans don't stand a chance against artificial intelligence. A Nobel-winning scientist explains why

WION Web Team
New Delhi, IndiaEdited By: Bharat SharmaUpdated: May 18, 2021, 06:30 PM IST
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A representative image can be seen. Photograph:(Reuters)

Story highlights

During the pandemic rush hour, many have seemed to forget the larger foe lurking in the shadows - artificial intelligence

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world and brought everyone to heel, conspiracy theories have taken over the virtual space. Almost every object now deemed mandatory in safe human existence was subjected to the conspiracy treatment - from the virus itself to the tools used to prevent it.

Many believed masks harboured harmful waves and were instead spreading the virus. Of course, none of these are scientifically correct. Masks are a great way to protect oneself against the virus, and vaccines do save lives!

During the pandemic rush hour, many have seemed to forget the larger foe lurking in the shadows - artificial intelligence. Literature dating back to decades predicted the world would slip into a technology coma of sorts, whereby everything we own and do will be dictated by the tech available to us. 

Although that it certainly true to some extent, technology has played a tremendous role in making our lives easier in all spheres of life from travel to knowledge accumulation.

But artificial intelligence has one benefit humans don’t - it is artificial! While humans are marred by limits due to our physicality, AI can relentlessly work. It can continue to create, assess, observe, and implement without needing rest. 

AI will soon become capable of outworking humans. This will trigger a series of changes for our general ways of life. Many fields will become entirely dependent on artificial intelligence. And even though AI may not be outsmarting us any time soon, a Nobel Prize winning scientist Daniel Kahneman recently told The Guardian how AI will outwit us in all spheres imaginable.

Referring to the power-play which will naturally ensure once artificial intelligence crosses a certain threshold of development, Kahneman said that “Clearly, AI is going to win… It’s not even close”. In fact, he wondered how people would adjust to this and called it a “fascinating problem”.

He cited the COVID-19 pandemic to explain how the human mind is incapable of dealing with problems that develop exponentially.  Kahneman said that humans are experienced in “a more or less linear world”. When things explode unreasonably, like the Covid surges reported globally, “we’re not equipped for it”. He also said that it “takes a long time to educate intuition”.