Meta’s Chief AI Scientist: Humans Will Always Be the Apex Species (1)
Meta’s Head of AI just posted the below on his LinkedIn. In short, he believes that “just because something is smart doesn’t mean it will dominate us”. However, his friend, colleague, and fellow Turing Award Winner Yoshua Bengio offers an opposing perspective in his article “How Rogue AIs May Arise”. Read both and let us know which side you’re on!
Once AI systems become more intelligent than humans, humans we will *still* be the "apex species."
Equating intelligence with dominance is the main fallacy of the whole debate about AI existential risk.
It's just wrong.
Even *within* the human species It's wrong: it's *not* the smartest among us who dominate the others.
More importantly, it's not the smartest among us who *want* to dominate others and who set the agenda.
We are subservient to our drives, built into us by evolution.
Because evolution made us a social species with a hierarchical social structure, some of us have a drive to dominate, and others not so much.
But that drive has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence: chimpanzees, baboons, and wolves have similar drives.
Orangutans do not because they are not a social species. And they are pretty darn smart.
AI systems will become more intelligent than humans, but they will still be subservient to us.
They same way the members of the staff of politicians or business leaders are often smarter than their leader.
But their leader still calls the shot, and most staff members have no desire to take their place.
We will design AI to be like the supersmart-but-non-dominating staff member.
The "apex species" is not the smartest but the one that sets the overall agenda.
That will be us.
