If you haven’t heard of Hugo de Garis, AI researcher and Professor at China’s Xiamen University, then you’ve probably never heard of an Artilect either. A contraction of Artificial Intellect, the Artilects are future creations that, according to de Garis, will be immortal, godlike robotic beings that, due to being built on a substrate of nanoscale computer chips, will have billions of times the intelligence of the average human. Needless to say, these Artilects would not for a second hesitate in wiping out the entire human species if their need dictates; much like a human wouldn’t trouble themselves over running over an ant colony on their way to work.
It’s important to listen to de Garis because he is one of those rare scientific researchers that actually considers the implications of his work. In de Garis’ view, in the late 21st century humanity will have the technological ability to create the Artilects. At that point, humans will be divided into three camps: the Terrans, who will attempt to violently prevent the creation of the Artilects; the Cosmists, who think building them is a good idea; and the Cyborgists, who will attempt to merge with the Artilects to preserve some shred of their humanity. These three camps will fight it out and the winner will decide the fate of the planet. Since the war will be fought with late 21st century weaponry, the death toll is expected to be in the billions.
In a Forbes article, Hugo de Garis describes this coming Artilect war:
I differ sharply with well-known futurist Ray Kurzweil on his over-optimistic prediction that the rise of the artilect this century will be a positive development for humanity. I think it will be a catastrophe. I see a war coming, the “Artilect War,” not between the artilects and human beings, as in the movie Terminator, but between the Terrans, Cosmists and Cyborgists. This will be the worst, most passionate war that humanity has ever known, because the stakes–the survival of our species–have never been so high. Given the period in which this war will occur, the late 21st century, with late 21st century weapons, the scale of the killing will not be in the millions, as in the 20th century (the bloodiest in history, with 200-300 million people killed in wars, purges, holocausts and genocides) but in the billions. There will be gigadeath.
Although many people might dismiss de Garis’ vision as science fiction, as a fellow ex-AI researcher myself, I believe that de Garis’ horrifying prophecy is fundamentally correct.Indeed, today we are beginning to the see the foundations laid for this final battle, with ex-CounterTerrorism Czar Richard Clarke declaring that the future terrorist threat will be from those who resist the coming technology, and with the increasing amount of automation used in weaponry and surveillance systems.
The one point I disagree with in de Garis’ future scenario is that there is necessarily a need for an Artilect war. It’s quite possible that in the process of building such an advanced technological society various techno-catastrophes would occur that destroy the civilization before it is capable of building these Artilects — one recent example of this is the catastrophic Gulf Oil Spill. And I’m sure there are many, many more on the way.
