If artificial intelligence can outperform humans in every mental activity and robotics can outperform us in every physical task, we will have created a superfluous and inferior species! At first glance, Elon Musk’s comments about the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) may seem exaggerated. However, these are the realistic predictions of a man who is working to perfect driverless cars and plans to flood the market with personal robots that can do a wide range of tasks. Elon Musk is not joking when he warns that “digital superintelligence” poses a “fundamental species level danger” to the human race; he is well aware of the implications of his statements. Our only chance of surviving as a species is if our conscious awareness, emotions, empathy, creative potential, and ability to imagine will give us an edge over soulless AI that doesn’t even know it exists. The best way to tell if AI will ever be able to beat thinking, feeling, self-aware, loving, vulnerable, and mortal biological beings is to see if it can make works of art that are better than those made by humans. We are already boxed in, and the arts represent our last and best chance for survival. As a species, we are going to perish as soon as AI triumphs over the very last human artist.
This is something that is occurring right now, and live artists find themselves in the position of being the embattled Resistance battling against an advancing invasion of nigh unstoppable Art Terminators. As a digital writer, I often feel like I’m living out a role in one of my favorite science fiction films.
If we know that artificial intelligence and robots can outperform humans in every endeavor, what possible reason do we have to put out any effort at all? Who will hire us to do work that a machine can do more quickly, more accurately, and at a far lower price than we can? The explorers did not put their lives in danger by traveling over dangerous terrain in order to locate territory that had previously been mapped out by a drone in painstaking detail.
Curiosity is the driving force behind all of my creative endeavors. I am able to bring into existence in my head pictures that I have never seen before and that I will never see again if I don’t take the initiative to create them myself. In this regard, artists may be compared to explorers since they develop their skills and talents, make sacrifices, and take risks in order to go into the unknown and return with riches that have not yet been discovered. After artificial intelligence has surpassed humans’ ability to make new pictures, there will be no more chance of finding something new.