Artificial intelligence

"AI enables technical systems to perceive their environment, to deal with what they perceive and to solve problems in order to achieve a certain goal", says an article (1) on artificial intelligence published on the website of the European Parliament. Most people do not realise how often they encounter what is called artificial intelligence. Many well-known platforms such as YouTube and Google use artificially intelligent programmes to analyse every activity of the user on their platform, create a profile and display search results and suggestions tailored to this profile, with the main aim of getting the user to spend as much time as possible on the platform. An algorithm that can, for example, guess a user's favourite band based on their activities on the web is called weak AI. Without really realising it, we have allowed "intelligent" computer systems to do more and more of our work for us, to make decisions for us and to filter the information we receive about our environment. While we can always decide whether or not to accept a search result or suggestion offered to us by an AI on the internet, there is no way of knowing whether we can still influence the driving behaviour of an AI when we are driving a car, once we are automatically strapped into a car without a steering wheel. 

A strong AI, on the other hand, is a computer programme that thinks beyond the task for which it was originally created and has the same intellectual abilities as a human being or even surpasses it. This would be achieved if the favourite band recognition algorithm suddenly also suggested to you which outfit fits best to the music scene of your favourite band and from now on constantly sent you suggestions for suitable clothing by e-mail. Afterwards, the AI might decide to create its own online shop because its outfit suggestions in the emails have actually inspired many people to buy. Afterwards, the AI then invests the money it has earned in an arms company, simply because the share price has just happened to rise unusually sharply. Through data from the internet, the AI learns which area the arms company supplies and then also invests in an arms company, which in turn supplies an enemy area, in order to increase its sales through increased warlike actions.

Most people would probably decide differently at one point or another because their conscience would not allow them to make these decisions. Presumably, some people would already have no desire to fire up other people with advertising proposals. A strong AI, on the other hand, has neither a conscience nor any kind of personal goal. It simply makes decisions because they seem logical to it. Strong AIs are highly intelligent and conscienceless machines that are likely to have access to all the data stored on the internet and the ability to analyse it in a fraction of a second and thus intervene in pretty much all the processes of our human world to whatever degree and in whatever way it pleases.

The development of powerful AI is a serious systemic risk to our human world. In order to regain control over this development, it is of fundamental importance to start with the currently already developed weak AI, to identify and characterise its dangers and then to elaborate and implement safety concepts so that an uncontrolled development of stronger AI is not possible in the first place.

Questions about to what extent we want to hand over decision-making power to programmed algorithms and machines, and whether we agree with all possible consequences, are questions we should answer before creating such machines. A chance to answer these questions afterwards and to be able to make changes in this regard is not certain.