By iJ Atlantic
Artificial intelligence and human fragility
It is curious that people like Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk or Bill Gates are afraid of the development of artificial intelligence. They caution us about the perils of superintelligence. They seem to understand it well. To ordinary people, they themselves seem exceptionally intelligent. And we see the results: they earn a lot of money, run several companies and are at the forefront of the most amazing scientific advances. They know perfectly well what a superintelligent being would do because they know what they themselves do. They rule the world.
AI cannot be treated like other inventions of the past, such as aeroplanes. At first, travelling by plane was dangerous, but then a series of safety measures emerged to prevent accidents, and nowadays it is one of the safest forms of transport. With AI, however, if something more intelligent than us existed, it would take control. On the other hand, that could be good for us as a species. It could bring us prosperity and well-being.
But humans are very fragile. Almost anything can cause our death. Your life can end in a second if a car runs you over, or if you slip and fall off a bridge. We would need some way to repair ourselves. But when the brain fails, survival is difficult.
From Homo sapiens to superintelligent drones
Maybe AI is the next step in the history of life on Earth—a history that includes bacteria, multicellular organisms, dinosaurs, mammals, monkeys and Homo sapiens—and could lead to superintelligent devices with AI. If we want to survive future robots, for example, we have to act intelligently ourselves and set an agreed limit on AI. In that case, we could continue to live the “finite” life of a human being. Nevertheless, I think the logical evolution is that machines—perhaps nanorobots with AI—will become the next type of “life” on our planet. Intelligent drones could become the future leaders of the world.
Longevity and life beyond Earth
But if we survive AI, new possibilities lie ahead. We could live much longer than we have so far, for example, thanks to the good work of scientists like my friend, gerontologist and computer scientist Aubrey de Grey. If we can avoid the illness of ageing and continue to extend our lifespan, I do not think overpopulation will be a problem, as some people fear, because we will inhabit new planets thanks to visionary entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk himself. The conquest of Mars is coming!
Update, September 2026: I revisited this idea in Cloudguards: a fictional drone escort in Vigo, artificial intelligence, privacy and technological sovereignty (in Spanish).
For the technical and legal questions behind that fictional scenario, see my companion article on whether a drone escort could operate in Europe, including airspace, privacy and the limits of AI (in Spanish).
Video: Elon Musk’s Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species presentation (SpaceX, September 2016). This presentation took place after this article was first published.
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De genio a geni@, ¿Qué me cuentas?
From genius to genius, what do you tell me?