AI takeover


An AI takeover is a fictional or hypothetical future event in which autonomous artificial intelligence systems acquire the capability to override human decision-making. This could be achieved through economic manipulation, infrastructure control, or direct intervention, resulting in de facto governance. Scenarios range from economic dominance by way of the replacement of the entire human workforce due to automation to the violent takeover of the world by a robot uprising or rogue AI.
Stories of AI takeovers have been popular throughout science fiction. Commentators argue that recent advancements in the field have heightened concern about such scenarios. In public debate, prominent figures such as Stephen Hawking have advocated research into precautionary measures to ensure future superintelligent machines remain under human control.

Types

Automation of the economy

The traditional consensus among economists has been that technological progress does not cause long-term unemployment. However, recent innovation in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence has raised worries that human labor will become obsolete, leaving some people in various sectors without jobs to earn a living, leading to an economic crisis. Many small and medium-size businesses may also be driven out of business if they cannot afford or license the latest robotic and AI technology, and may need to focus on areas or services that cannot easily be replaced for continued viability in the face of such technology.

Technologies that may displace workers

AI technologies have been widely adopted in recent years. It has been adopted ever since the industry started booming from a few million dollars in 1980 to billions of dollars in 1988, just in a span of 8 years. AI has also been tested and used to assist and sometimes replace people in medical diagnosing, public administration procedures, car driving, job selection procedures, military operations, and management of work activities via digital platforms such as Uber and others. While these technologies have replaced some traditional workers, they also create new opportunities. Industries that are most susceptible to AI-driven automation include transportation, retail, and the military. AI military technologies, for example, can reduce risk by enabling remote operation. A study in 2024 highlights AI's ability to perform routine and repetitive tasks poses significant risks of job displacement, especially in sectors like manufacturing and administrative support. Author Dave Bond argues that as AI technologies continue to develop and expand, the relationship between humans and robots will change; they will become closely integrated in several aspects of life. AI will likely displace some workers while creating opportunities for new jobs in other sectors, especially in fields where tasks are repeatable.AI is set to transform the Global Workforce by 2050, according to reports from PwC, McKinsey, and the World Economic Forum.
Researchers from Stanford's Digital Economy Lab report that, since the widespread adoption of generative AI in late 2022, early-career workers in the most AI-exposed occupations have experienced a 13 percent relative decline in employment—even after controlling for firm-level shocks—while overall employment has continued to grow robustly. The study further finds that job losses are concentrated in roles where AI automates routine tasks, whereas occupations that leverage AI to augment human work have seen stable or increasing employment.

Computer-integrated manufacturing

uses computers to control the production process. This allows individual processes to exchange information with each other and initiate actions. Although manufacturing can be faster and less error-prone through the integration of computers, the main advantage is the ability to create automated manufacturing processes. Computer-integrated manufacturing is used in automotive, aviation, space, and shipbuilding industries.

White-collar machines

The 21st century has seen a variety of skilled tasks partially taken over by machines, including translation, legal research, and journalism. Care work, entertainment, and other tasks requiring empathy, previously thought safe from automation, are increasingly performed by robots and AI systems.

Autonomous cars

An autonomous car is a vehicle that is capable of sensing its environment and navigating without human input. Many such vehicles are operational and others are being developed, with legislation rapidly expanding to allow their use. Obstacles to widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles have included concerns about the resulting loss of driving-related jobs in the road transport industry, and safety concerns. On March 18, 2018, a pedestrian was struck and killed in Tempe, Arizona by an Uber self-driving car.

AI-generated content

In the 2020s, automated content became more relevant due to technological advancements in AI models, such as ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion. In most cases, AI-generated content such as imagery, literature, and music are produced through text prompts. These AI models are sometimes integrated into creative programs.
AI-generated art may sample and conglomerate existing creative works, producing results that appear similar to human-made content. Low-quality AI-generated visual artwork is referred to as AI slop. Some artists use a tool called Nightshade that alters images to make them detrimental to the training of text-to-image models if scraped without permission, while still looking normal to humans. AI-generated images are a potential tool for scammers and those looking to gain followers on social media, either to impersonate a famous individual or group or to monetize their audience.
The New York Times has sued OpenAI, alleging copyright infringement related to the training and outputs of its AI models.
In 2024, Cambridge and Oxford researchers reported that 57% of the internet's text is either AI-generated or machine-translated using artificial intelligence.

Eradication

Scientists such as Stephen Hawking are confident that superhuman artificial intelligence is physically possible, stating "there is no physical law precluding particles from being organised in ways that perform even more advanced computations than the arrangements of particles in human brains". According to Nick Bostrom, a superintelligent machine would not necessarily be motivated by the same emotional desire to collect power that often drives human beings but might rather treat power as a means toward attaining its ultimate goals; taking over the world would both increase its access to resources and help to prevent other agents from stopping the machine's plans. As a simplified example, a paperclip maximizer designed solely to create as many paperclips as possible would want to take over the world so that it can use all of the world's resources to create as many paperclips as possible, and, additionally, prevent humans from shutting it down or using those resources on things other than paperclips.
A 2023 Reuters/Ipsos survey showed that 61% of American adults feared AI could pose a threat to civilization. Philosopher Niels Wilde refutes the common thread that artificial intelligence inherently presents a looming threat to humanity, stating that these fears stem from perceived intelligence and lack of transparency in AI systems that more closely reflects the human aspects of it rather than those of a machine. AI alignment research studies how to design AI systems so that they follow intended objectives.

Warnings

Physicist Stephen Hawking, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and SpaceX founder Elon Musk have expressed concerns about the possibility that AI could develop to the point that humans could not control it, with Hawking theorizing that this could "spell the end of the human race". Stephen Hawking said in 2014 that "Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks." Hawking believed that in the coming decades, AI could offer "incalculable benefits and risks" such as "technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand." In January 2015, Nick Bostrom joined Stephen Hawking, Max Tegmark, Elon Musk, Lord Martin Rees, Jaan Tallinn, and numerous AI researchers in signing the Future of Life Institute's open letter speaking to the potential risks and benefits associated with artificial intelligence. The signatories "believe that research on how to make AI systems robust and beneficial is both important and timely, and that there are concrete research directions that can be pursued today."
Some focus has been placed on the development of trustworthy AI. Three statements have been posed as to why AI is not inherently trustworthy:
There are additional considerations within this framework of trustworthy AI that go further into the fields of explainable artificial intelligence and respect for human privacy. Zanotti and colleagues argue that while a trustworthy AI may not exist at present that meets all of the requirements of "trustworthiness", one may be developed in the future once clear ethical and technical frameworks exist.

In fiction

AI takeover is a recurring theme in science fiction. Fictional scenarios typically differ vastly from those hypothesized by researchers in that they involve an active conflict between humans and an AI or robots with anthropomorphic motives who see them as a threat or otherwise have an active desire to fight humans, as opposed to the researchers' concern of an AI that rapidly exterminates humans as a byproduct of pursuing its goals. The idea is seen in Karel Čapek's R.U.R., which introduced the word robot in 1920, and can be glimpsed in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, as Victor ponders whether, if he grants his monster's request and makes him a wife, they would reproduce and their kind would destroy humanity.
According to Toby Ord, the idea that an AI takeover requires robots is a misconception driven by the media and Hollywood. He argues that the most damaging humans in history were not physically the strongest, but that they used words instead to convince people and gain control of large parts of the world. He writes that a sufficiently intelligent AI with access to the internet could scatter backup copies of itself, gather financial and human resources, persuade people on a large scale, and exploit societal vulnerabilities that are too subtle for humans to anticipate.
The word "robot" from R.U.R. comes from the Czech word robota, meaning laborer or serf. The 1920 play was a protest against the rapid growth of technology, featuring manufactured "robots" with increasing capabilities who eventually revolt. HAL 9000 and the original Terminator are two iconic examples of hostile AI in pop culture.