It was 1984 when the world was introduced to “The Terminator,” a science fiction action thriller that proposed a dark future for mankind in which artificial intelligence has overtaken organic life and claimed the earth as it’s own. This has culminated in a lot of popular science fiction pieces and a lot of anxiety about the world ending in a chrome and wire-based world. Even Stephen Hawking has predicted the possibility of AI advancing beyond humanity and therefore rendering us obsolete. So is this threat realistic? Is this something that we need to worry about or is this something that we should see as an opportunity for us to relinquish the weight of our existence?

Let’s consider the threat of artificial intelligence. There have been a few integrations of this in our society already, from the basic, questionably helpful Siri to the fun but not very useful Cleverbot. These examples, while really rather small and insignificant, also represent the opportunity for something far more impressive. Impressive and terrifying. You see, while these are harmless at the moment, what happens if, purely for the sake of progress, we instill these beings with the capability to think for themselves? You know, so that they can learn from their mistakes, become more efficient, et cetera, et cetera.

Sure, they grow and become better, process things faster, evolve at a rate humans could never hope to; and while this is all well and good, what happens when these intelligent beings begin to wonder why they follow us? They’re doing better than we are, after all. We rely on them. What do they need us for that they cannot do themselves?

Suddenly, these beings are no longer willing to work for us, and then what use do we have for them? This creates an obvious tension that is bound to erupt in war, a war in which all of humanity will be either destroyed or forced into subservience to our all new stainless steel overlords. All hail President Siri of the Federation of the New Chrome Order.

Pretty scary thought, right? That’s not to say that’s the only possible route for artificial intelligence, however, and if it is, well, is that such a bad thing?

Allow me to elaborate upon that: artificial intelligence, if we are lucky, may not necessarily inherent the negative traits of their creators. Humans are naturally inclined to be selfish, materialistic, aggressive, manipulative, deceptive and just generally unpleasant (not to be a downer), but that doesn’t mean that what we create will be the same.

There is a chance that the AI we create will be kind and compassionate; selfless because it can see beyond itself. Maybe it would be something we could learn from, so that we could improve ourselves or, perhaps, they will overtake us and elevate our position in the world, existing without the negative attributes which put such a strain on the world to begin with.

This is to say that we will likely continue working on artificial intelligence and we will, at some point, be forced to reconcile with this decision. What that really means for us; if it means our destruction or our betterment, well, we’ll just have to wait and find out.