Could artificial intelligence actually kill us all?
A senior employee at Anthropic has warned that there could be a greater than 10% chance that advanced AI could cause human extinction. Sam Altman has also warned that humanity could “lose control of the future to AI”.
But what does that actually mean?
In this explainer from ITV News Science Correspondent Martin Stew, we look beyond the headlines to examine the real risks posed by increasingly powerful AI — from criminals and hostile states using AI to supercharge attacks, to the more difficult problem of AI “misalignment”, where autonomous AI agents could pursue their goals in ways that humans did not intend.
We also look at what happens if AI systems become vastly more intelligent than humans, why AI agents are changing the technology race, and why some of the biggest names in the industry are calling for caution.
But there is another side to the story.
AI could dramatically accelerate scientific discovery, help deliver medical breakthroughs, create new sustainable materials and automate tasks that currently consume huge amounts of human time.
So why isn’t the world simply slowing down?
We examine the US-China AI arms race, the enormous economic incentives behind the technology, arguments over AI regulation, protests in the UK and the growing debate over how much risk society should accept in exchange for the potential rewards.
Could we control increasingly powerful AI — or are we entering a race that humanity may eventually lose control of?
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