Long Ago Visionaries Feared AI

      Let us talk about Artificial Intelligence this morning. Elon Musk has a deep fear of AI. He sees grim scenarios including the end of the human race at the hands of the AI we are creating. Despite this, Elon is committing major resources to create an AI company to compete with Google and Microsoft. It is called X AI.

      Management at Google and Microsoft are devoting massive resources to developing AI. They feel that AI can be controlled and will not become the destroyer of humanity. My personal opinion is that despite the best controls states like Russia and China will find ways to weaponize AI. We are already seeing this in Russia.

   Believe it or not, fear of AI is not a new phenomenon. It goes back almost 60 years. I am going to introduce you to some visionaries that you might not have heard of before.

    D.F. Jones is a British science fiction writer. He rose to fame when he wrote a 1953 science fiction book "This Island Earth." Two years later, Universal Studios turned it into a high-budget science fiction film that is a cult classic 68 years later. In 1966, Mr. Jones published a book titled "Colossus." 4 years later Universal Studios made a movie based on the book Colossus "The Forban Project." 53 years later, it is still a cult classic. There is still intense demand for the DVD of the film. I have the DVD and it is one of my prized possessions. In 1974 Mr. Jones followed up with the book "The Fall Of Colossus."

    In this vision of the future world, the US developed a supercomputer named Colossus. In that time long ago computers were the IBM 1401. It was a primitive box with limited capabilities. Mr. Jones saw AI so long ago. His supercomputer is allowed to take over the US nuclear arsenal. It soon became apparent that the Soviet Union had developed a supercomputer named Guardian. These two AI computers take over the world.

   In this vision of the future, AI does not seek to eradicate the human race. Rather they take over the human race. They solved a lot of problems and created a utopian world eradicating hunger, inequality, war, etc. They become Gods to humanity. They have a ruthless side. If a community resists one of the computers, a nuclear warhead is dispatched to destroy it. If a human engages in anti-machine activities, they are decapitated by guillotine. In the awful tradition of Nazi Germany. If a human becomes seriously ill, disabled, mentally ill, or too old, they are killed.

    The second visionaries are Sir Authur Clarke and Stanley Kubrick. While Mr. Jones created Colossus, they created the HAL-9000 computer. It was an AI computer. It could even communicate with humans by voice. It is put on a manned spacecraft heading for Jupiter. It decides to kill the human crew and gets all but one astronaut.

   The third visionary is Glen Larson. In 1976 he created a classic television series that we all know well: Battlestar Galactica. In the world that Glen created, there is an alliance of 12 planets inhabited by humans. They take AI development to the point of creating robots with human capabilities. They are called Cylons. They turn against their creators. They go on a rampage with the goal of destroying all human life.