How AI and Big Tech Could Change Everything We Value About Being Human

Tom Scott explores the increasing sentience of AI chatbots and the potentially alarming consequences for the future of mankind

Neural network in a glass tank; AI image made using DALL-E from Microsoft/OpenAI

AI chatbots are now more than capable of seeming sentient. They’re not quite at the stage of achieving actual full sentience (yet), but recent rapid developments still raise serious questions about the nature of our own intelligence and the way society values, or fails to value, our fellow humans.

At the end of March, the Future of Life Institute published an open letter warning of the dangers posed by recent advances in artificial intelligence and calling for a pause in the training of AI systems more powerful than Microsoft’s GPT-4 until more rigorous safety protocols have been agreed. The letter was signed by a number of leading tech entrepreneurs, including Elon Musk and Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak.

“Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete [sic] and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?” it asked, conjuring a lurid vision of a Terminator-style future.