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Artificial intelligence: a blessing or a threat?

Today, the concept of ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI) has firmly entered our lives. However, many people are not fully aware of its essence and possible areas of application. Scientific discussions and developments in the field of AI, as a rule, remain outside the information space, and several published facts give rise to diametrically opposed assessments. At the end of March 2023, an open letter was published in the media by experts and representatives of the IT industry of the world, in which the authors warned that AI systems with human-like intelligence could pose a danger to society, and asked whether people should ‘risk losing control of civilisation’. So what is artificial intelligence, and why is it unique?

On the way to superbeing

Paradoxically, AI is a product of technological progress and the result of a person’s desire to understand the world around him. The term ‘artificial intelligence’ was first proposed by the American scientist John McCarthy in 1950 as ‘the ability of machines or computer programmes to learn, think and reason like the human brain’. The idea, revolutionary for its time, found both supporters and opponents.
The desire of enthusiasts to create an artificial thinking system was transformed into real scientific programmes that were actively supported at the state level. The results of close attention to the problem and decent funding for research have been the development of a direction and the development of cybernetic machines capable of reasoning like a person, solving applied problems and improving themselves.
Initially, AI was considered nothing more than a means of supporting managerial decision-making, it was actively used in scientific activities, financial analytics, production processes, energy, military affairs, to process large amounts of information.
With the development and improvement of technology, the development of new computers with better characteristics, the scope of AI has expanded, and the list of tasks to be solved has become ever wider.
Today it is customary to distinguish four main stages in the development of AI: ‘reactive’ thinking, limited perception (memory), theory of mind and self-consciousness. At the first stage, the priority was the current scenario and the speed of the reaction. This allowed the IBM Deep Blue chess computer to beat Grandmaster Garry Kasparov six times in a row in the late 1990s. The AI predicted the opponent’s possible moves much faster than the human brain, which gave it a real advantage.
The second stage was characterised by the limited capabilities of the system, but made it possible to create robotic production, control systems, unmanned vehicles, and significantly develop the sphere of entertainment and communications. The third is our modern reality, when machine learning algorithms are introduced into the system that reproduce the real physical world, thoughts and emotions. These are augmented reality, analytical projects, autonomous tools, humanoid robots.
In fact, AI is on the verge of understanding the processes taking place around it, which indicates the practical implementation of the task set by the people — the creators in the middle of the twentieth century. The next stage — self-awareness — can bring AI to the level of independent reproduction and form a new reality in which an artificial superbeing will appear. 
   

Undeniable advantages

One of the indisputable advantages of introducing AI is the minimisation of errors and the exclusion of the ‘human factor’ from technological chains. 
Machines make accurate decisions based on previous information they gather over time using sets of algorithms. Thus, there is a reduction in error and an increase in accuracy, which ultimately improves overall efficiency.
The possibility of saving human lives and health, minimising the risk of death in dangerous situations and hazardous production is another important advantage.
This allows one to significantly facilitate t
he work of people, make life more comfortable and safer.
Today, transport and industry, economics and finance, agriculture and energy, communications and medicine, services and entertainment, science and art all use elements of AI. 
It is no coincidence that the global software market is growing annually by 154 percent, and, according to expert forecasts, by 2025 it will exceed $22 billion.
Is it good or bad? Let’s try to look at the problem from the other side.        

Metaverse and other threats

According to most analysts, the introduction of new technologies and AI in the future will play a decisive role in the formation of global security threats. Given the weakening of moral foundations in society, it can become the basis of a new balance of power in the world, lead to a fundamental transformation of social thinking, and even provoke a geopolitical catastrophe.

Along with the undoubted advantages of AI technology, it can be: a weapon of mass influence on individual and mass consciousness on a global scale, a catalyst for the formation of a new world order, the basis for the transformation of the economy and employment, a means of cyberterrorism, a tool for biotechnological influence, a military-technical factor in transforming the essence of interstate confrontation.

Even today, virtual states have a real budget exceeding $3 trillion, and the number of their adherent users is more than 2 billion people. In the absence of legal regulation of the field of AI technology, it can be considered as an effective means of geopolitical and economic influence in the global digital space.

The robotisation of the economy is gradually changing the structure of the employment sector. The reality may be that a narrow circle of people gains unlimited control over material production and reduce jobs in the labour market. The consequences of such a scenario may be: social upheavals, an increase in the number of unclaimed professions, a drop in the standard of living of the population, a reduction in income. 

According to a study by the World Economic Forum 2023, the overall reduction in job vacancies in the labour market will be more than 2 percent over the next 5 years.

No less global consequences due to the introduction of AI are predicted in the military sphere. In the future, ‘universal’ cyborg soldiers, advertised by American Hollywood, can become an army reality. Already today, many AI technologies are embedded in real weapons. These are unmanned aircraft and helicopters, reconnaissance and air defence systems, ground, sea and air-based strike weapons, cybernetic and beam weapons.
The ideas of remote influence with minimal use of personnel are being implemented in most advanced countries of the world. Since 2018, similar military programmes have been initiated in the US, China, India, the UK and France. 

Prevent ‘roboticisation’ of consciousness

With the emergence of new world centres of power, AI technologies are becoming an important geopolitical factor. Created by the human mind, they can become both a powerful tool for development and a source of global problems.
Today, as never before, the moral and ethical components of society, its maturity and ability to take responsibility, solve philosophical and purely practical issues are relevant. The problem is complicated by the fact that it is global in nature, and its solution is in conflict with the goals of Western elites to ‘roboticise the consciousness’ of the individual, to achieve total control over society.

In this regard, such aspects of national security of the state as scientific and technological, social, informational, biological and military acquire a special role. Efforts should be made to ensure that AI remains a reliable means of creation and development, and does not become a tool for the destruction and destruction of civilisation.

By Nikolai Buzin, Doctor of Military Sciences, Professor, Assistant to the Chairman of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly