Artificial Intelligence (AI) will gradually take over human functions, wrote L D'Monte, with machines "predicted to be better than us at translating languages by 2024, writing high school essays by 2026, driving a truck by 2027, working in retail by 2031, writing a book by 2049 and surgery by 2053". Scientists are constructing neural nets modelled on the human brain, comprising of "thousands or even millions of simple processing nodes that are densely interconnected". Can AI go rogue? "In June 2017, two AI chatbots developed by researchers at Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR), with the aim of negotiating with humans, began talking to each other in a language of their own since the rules of the English language did not suit the bots." Scary. The program was shut down. "Before AI achieves singularity, it will be a horror," believes S Pai. A majority of countries at the United Nations' Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) wanted a ban on fully autonomous weapons systems but were prevented from doing so by countries such as Australia, Israel, Russia, South Korea and the US. Politicians think that by researching ever more lethal ways of killing they can stay ahead of the race but baddies inevitably catch up. Already terrorists are using drones and even customizing them to drop bombs on armed forces. The FBI warned of "steadily escalating threat" of civilian drones being used for attacking government installations. The human brain has 86-100 billion neurons, with multiple connections, with a volume of about 1500 cubic centimeters. Will they be able to invent an artificial brain where microprocessors are packed into such a small volume without overheating? The refusal of countries to accept a ban on fully autonomous weapons at the CCW maybe because of a fear of getting swamped as fertility levels fall drastically in richer countries while continuing unchecked in poorer nations. Thousands of migrants massed at the US border with Mexico maybe a sign of worse to come. Europe has not found any solutions to its crisis of migrants from Africa. European leaders are paying countries to stop their citizens from migrating by helping them to improve their economies. But this will only make the crisis worse as economic growth in low income countries tends to encourage migration, especially when combined with very high fertility. As migrants look for a better life in the US, climate change will make life much tougher for residents. The US has no control over deforestation of the Amazon rain forest but the resulting change in climate will create even more refugees. Will the US and Europe start using armed robots with AI to keep migrants out? Could happen.
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