The (Very) Dark Side of Technology

Just when I thought I'd captured the market on worrying, E. sent me a video that makes my anxieties seem trivial. The video was created by Stuart Russell, a professor at UC Berkeley, in collaboration with the Future of Life Institute. It was shown earlier this month in Geneva, Switzerland at a United Nations meeting of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. The video presents a grim fantasy about the unintended consequences of developing weaponized drones that use artificial intelligence. It's meant to scare the sh*t out of us and, for me at least, it worked.

Earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, even nuclear war pale in comparison to the dystopian future pictured in the video. Okay, nuclear war can't really pale in comparison to anything, but this scenario is about as close as it gets.

The first drone I saw up close, during the innocent 

days when small drones were only used for things 

like real estate photography.

While technology has increased our ability to do good, some people inevitably seek to exploit it for evil ends. E. and I often speculate about the coming rise of machines and we wonder whether artificial intelligence will take over the world. Sometimes I even imagine that, given the destructive history of our species, machines would do a better job.

The video, though, pictures a world where humans are still in charge, one in which terrorists appropriate technology originally intended for fighting criminals and use it to further their malevolent goals. Professor Russell hopes the video will galvanize the world into action to prevent the scenario it depicts. But he cautions that time is running out.

Watch the video if you dare. And on Thanksgiving day, be thankful that the murderous drones depicted in it haven't been unleashed, yet.