You wouldn’t have to travel too far back into the past to find people, or even the most revered scientists, who would not be able to conceive of the technology we use today. And, it’s conceivable right now as we march headlong into a new era of highly intelligent computers evolving exponentially, that technology will become something we cannot presently conceive. For many people with an eye on the future, humanity is knocking on the door of a brave new world.

If there’s anything that piques our curiosity, or arouses our fears concerning technology down the road, arguably A.I. (artificial intelligence) is the cause celeb. Tech giants such as Microsoft and Facebook are investing heavily in making their service-minded chatbots more intelligent as we speak, but just how far away are we from artificial intelligence that can do more than hail a taxi? How long until A.I. can relate to us, reason with us; technology that could make a large part of the human workforce surplus to requirements?

We’ve heard a lot lately about the rise of the robots, but it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve blown technological advances out of proportion.

Where are we now?

The limits to what A.I. can do is sometimes divided into categories, or calibers.

The first of those calibers is Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI). This is the kind of A.I. that is tasked, or programmed, to do one specific job. It might be advanced enough to beat a Go player, but that’s all it’s been programmed to do. This is about as far as we have got in creating intelligent computers. The robot (just the name for the shell of A.I.) does what it’s told, for all intents and purposes it’s true to the origins of the word robot: slave (from the Czech robotnik).

ANI’s are what drive self-driving cars, translate foreign languages, answer you when you talk to Siri, rank pages in Google, or tell you that you might want to add a certain person as a ‘friend’ on a social media platform. It’s sometimes flawed, but there can be no doubt we are seeing improvements at quite a fast rate.

Where will we be?

AGI

After this we have Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which would be able to think on its own virtual feet. It would be able to plan, argue, reason, and even think outside of the box, just like any human. For this to happen the computational power of the A.I will have to be much, much larger, so powerful it could mimic the mind boggling calculations the human brain can do.

ASI

And then there’s the scary, sometimes dystopian vision of A.I, which is Artificial Superintelligence (ASI). This technology would be vastly superior to our own intelligence … and a possible existential threat to us at the same time.

Oxford University philosopher and A.I. expert Nick Bostrom believes we are not so far away from super intelligent A.I. “Once there is human-level AI there will soon be superintelligence,” said Bostrom in a paper written on the subject. In spite of our collective fears he believes we will create it, and this will happen in the not too distant future.

“Superintelligence might be seen to pose a threat to the supremacy, and even to the survival, of the human species,” said Bostrom, adding “If future policy-makers can be sure that AIs would not endanger human interests then the development of artificial intelligence will continue.”

Futurist Ray Kurzweil has said, in accordance with the exponential growth of technology, this kind of superintelligence will be around come 2045 (that’s if Moore’s Law doesn’t collapse). We are told the technology will improve slowly, and then boom! A great breakthrough will occur and our lives will be very different.

Bostrom describes this superintelligence as,  “An intellect that is much smarter than the best human brains in practically every field, including scientific creativity, general wisdom and social skills.” This situation would probably mean some fantastic scientific breakthroughs, but for the first time in its sometimes glorious, other times shameful history the human species would be subordinate to another form of life, albeit a synthetic organism. 

Should you be worried about losing your job?

We may not believe in such, presently, bold predictions, but for a few years now there has been a growing belief that intelligent computers will soon be putting many people out of work.

In February, President Barack Obama’s economic report to Congress stated that if you earn less than $20 an hour then there’s a good chance your job could be automated soon. According to scientist Moshe Vardi, half the world could be out of work within the next 30 years, even sex workers. Vardi, as well as other scientists, see this as worrying.

But that’s 30 years down the line, the time when some people believe we will be relatively dumb aside our intelligent designs. What about right here and now? Let us not forget the recent news that many of the new chatbots we’ve seen are actually powered by humans, meaning a bot didn’t respond to you, rather a human told the bot what to say.

An article in Bloomberg last week stated, “For now, the companies are largely powered by people, clicking behind the curtain and making it look like magic.” Chatbots are not so advanced at the moment they can interact with humans flawlessly, responding to requests with reliable answers. We might also remember what happened to Microsoft’s Tay chatbot when she was released on the public. Result: mayhem. If ever a chatbot needed a censor, an editor … a human. Relating to us responsibly is obviously not easy.

In a recent report by Oxford University, any job requiring care or empathy, such as therapists, social workers or nurses, is not really at risk from automation. The same report states that creative occupations, or jobs which require a certain amount of original thinking, are also pretty safe.

Designers, creative writers, or engineers, are likely to stay un-automated. According to this report the top five at-risk jobs are: telephone salesperson, typist or related keyboard worker, legal secretary, accounts manager, weigher, grader or sorter. House cleaners, or manual laborers, are not jobs that could easily be automated given present technology. The fact is, if A.I. could do your job, it’s not rocket science.

A harmonious relationship

According to this January article in The Atlantic, we don’t have much to fear. Not right now at least – in 2045 we’ll get back to you. While computers, according to the article, have been doing a much better job than humans in things like sorting through corporate documents in the legal milieu, paralegals and lawyers have not been put out of work. The technology only compliments what they already do. Nor did ATMs put bank tellers out of work. Instead the banks saved money and expanded their operations. “Computers create about as many jobs as they eliminate. In other words, automation is not causing persistent unemployment,” stated the article.

This McKinsey report stated that, “Fewer than 5 percent of occupations can be entirely automated using current technology. However, about 60 percent of occupations could have 30 percent or more of their constituent activities automated.” According to the report this is great news, it will mean less rote work and, “Freeing the employee to focus on work of higher value.” One problem with this, another report states, is job displacement. Mainly low wage earners might not have the necessary computer skills that are required for their modernized job, a job that has evolved in itself, and so they are displaced from their outdated occupation.

If we really are on the threshold of super-advanced A.I that’s difficult to comprehend, then it’s likely that 30 years from now the dynamics of industry, or how we attend to economic equality, will have drastically changed. It’s generally agreed that having computers do highly repetitive work, analyzing mind-numbing data, lessening workplace drudgery in myriad ways, is a good thing. In spite of the ‘the robots are coming’ sentiment, helping us is what they have being doing best. We like robots as they were first realized, as our slaves, but perhaps not our replacements, or our masters. This type of working relationship seems to be working right now, but let’s check back in 2045.

Photo credit: Robot Walk via Flickr