As the world embraces artificial intelligence swiftly, a top expert has warned that unaligned superintelligence is as deadly as a dangerous asteroid approaching earth.
In a column written in The Time, Max Tegmark, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, talked about the necessity of taking abrupt actions to prevent the potential risks that could happen if AI dominates the planet.
In his column, Tegmark compared the rise of AI to the plot of the popular Netflix movie, "Don't Look Up," where scientists are ignored despite having a plan to prevent an asteroid from hitting Earth.
According to Tegmark, many AI experts have wise plans to steer AI in a safe direction. However, despite knowing the dangers associated with AI, the concerns of these experts are being ignored.
Tegmark also added that several experts have already warned that there is a 10 percent chance of AI causing human extinction.
According to Tegmark, these warnings are being taken as a joke by many in the scientific community, and such reluctance may ultimately result in human extinction.
The MIT expert added that several companies all across the world are currently working on artificial general intelligence, which can learn and perform most intellectual tasks that humans can, including AI development.
Tegmark went on and claimed that such developments could rapidly lead to superintelligence, which means AI could perform far beyond the human level.
A decade back, legendary British scientist Stephen Hawking had also warned that the rise of AI could spell an end to the human race.
"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race," Hawking told BBC.
He added: "It (AI) would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded."
