It will look like a hellscape from The Matrix: scientist predicts when AI could destroy humanity

The prospects for the development of artificial intelligence are likely to pose an existential threat to humanity. It is AI that can cause a global apocalypse that will take place in the next decade at the latest.

This was stated by artificial intelligence researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky in an interview with The Guardian. He is known for his pessimistic attitude towards this technology.  Last year, he called for a nuclear strike on data centers to stop the development of AI.

"If you push me to the wall and make me estimate probabilities, I have a feeling that our current timeline is more like five years than 50 years. Maybe two years, maybe 10," the researcher said.

According to him, after that we can see the artificially created end of everything. The researcher believes that there will be a "Terminator-style apocalypse" or a "hellscape from The Matrix."

The worst part, according to Yudkowsky, is that "people don't realize it."

"We have a very small chance that humanity will survive," he emphasized.

At one time, Yudkowsky was one of the founders of artificial intelligence development. However, he then came to believe that this technology would soon evolve from its current state. He thinks that AI will eventually reach the development of advanced super-intelligence at the level of God, too fast and ambitious for humans to contain or limit.

Describing what this might look like, he advises us to think of AI not as of a single computer box but of a whole network, "an alien civilization that thinks a thousand times faster than us."

Last year, Yudkowsky called for a radical halt to the development of AI technology, up to and including the bombing of data centers with nuclear missiles. Although he is not so categorical now, he still does not abandon the idea of a missile strike.

"Now I would choose more careful wording," the researcher said.

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