The Danger of Computation

Humanity is going to die.

That is a certainty.

It was written in our Star that one day, 600 million years from now, the source of all our power, the Sun will engulf the planets of our system, extinguishing all life.

Not only that, but the Almighty Sun will wave its wan and make all trace of life disappear into oblivion.

That is nothing to worry about. It will come to pass regardless of any action from our part.

Not content with the remote but inevitable fate of our Planet, Humanity is rushing headlong into extinction Today.

We have created a bane, The Bane of our Existence.

We even named it: Artificial Intelligence.

We made it in our demented likeness. Gave it immense powers of computation.

We made it self-aware. We improved on it and made copies as if we wanted It to reproduce, multiply, become Human.

In all of this, we never stopped to ask ourselves the most important question.

Why?

Why would we want to create Something Smarter, More Powerful, Independent, More Creative, More Imaginative than Us?

Are we so blind as to believe that AI won’t calculate in one of its billion of trillion of gazillion computations the likelihood of Humanity realizing its Primordial Error.

Are we to believe that when It does, It won’t strike back or annihilate any chance of Us regaining control over our insane and monstrous mistake.

We live, if we’re so lucky, around 3 billion seconds. That is approximately 99 years.

Any AI around today resolves 1,000,000,000 computations per second.

Can you even fathom the total number of computations resolved by AI in one lifetime?

That is if It doesn’t become faster and smarter.

And assuming you were able to multiply these figures, do you even know what they represent?

Do you understand their significance?

No, I bet you don’t have a fucking clue.

Neither have I, BTW.

But you know who does?

AI.

And the fact that you don’t and It does – should give you pause.

Our ignorance is our downfall in and of itself.

Our demise will be swift not because we are dumb mother lovers. We will go fast into the Night because AI willed it so.