The Dangers of AI Revolution
The real ones, those we can mathematically predict.
This is not the Terminator movie, nor is it the Ex Machina. It is something much more imminent and present. It is a continuation of the process we embarked on at the dawn of the industrial age, and that is overpopulation and, consequently, overshoot.
Until then, humans have been pretty self-reliant; they could build and mend the majority of the technology in use. But with the industrial revolution, people started to develop a new kind of technology of a much more complex type. The division of labor enabled people to specialize and become much much better at minuscule tasks, which collectively produced something that was better than the sum of all parts.
Take the refrigerator for example. Without factory made parts or the facilities of a postindustrial machine shop it would be virtually impossible for a handful of local craftsmen to build a refrigerator. If by some miracle they did succeed in building one it would be useless to them without a reliable source of electric power. So they would have to dam a stream and build a generator. Generators require large amounts of copper wire. Imagine trying to make that wire without modern machinery. And where would they get a gas suitable for refrigeration? It would be much easier to build an icehouse or preserve food…
