Futurist asks: Are we ready for AI takeover?

DUBAI — The world is going through massive technological changes, which are set to transform societies and the lives of individuals in the future, futurist Jamais Cascio said at a 20-minute session held on the first day of the 18th Arab Media Forum. Cascio, who was selected by

Foreign Policy magazine as a Top 100 Global Thinker, took the audience ‘20 minutes into the future’ to talk about the possibilities that could change the world in the next decade.

Using the phrase ‘incoming asteroids’ as a metaphor to describe the massive changes impacting our world today, Cascio said societies need to start thinking about what they need to do to deal with challenges rising from climate disruptions, artificial intelligence (AI), and systems that are able to manipulate reality.

“We currently have AI in our phones, in our homes, and even in our cars. It’s not just that they can learn how to understand what we say, these are systems that are capable of doing things better than people can. As they become more complex, it becomes harder for us to understand how they come up with their own answers,” said Cascio, who is also an author of the book Hacking the Earth: Understanding the Consequences of Geoengineering.

He added that as AI becomes more powerful, we are going to be facing plenty of situations where people are going to rely on AI to do things for them without knowing why. “In the next decade, there will be a race between cars and phones, as to which one will be the most important AI system in our lives,” he said.

Cascio mentioned how the rules made in the past increasingly no longer apply to the global issues humanity is facing now.

He added that the ‘asteroid’ that is going to be really destructive — and is going to be the most critical for the media to wrestle with — is the manipulation of reality.

“The boundary between reality and deception has become dangerously thin. Increasingly, our tools allow us to create falsehoods that are indistinguishable from reality.” Cascio believes mobile phones are powerful tools to combat manipulations. “Mobile phones allow us to capture images, and when you have multiple people in one place with their phones and cameras taking pictures, it makes it hard to manipulate reality, because you have a diversity of perspectives on the event.”

Cascio was optimistic about the human race being able to grapple with these changes successfully. “It will be a long and difficult process, but it won’t be impossible. We need to think about how we can respond to these metaphorical asteroids and the choices we have to make and might want to make in order to adapt, survive and thrive.”