‘Doomsday clock’: it is 89 seconds to midnight
Marco van Hurne
AI & ML advisory | Author of The Machine Learning Book of Knowledge | Building AI skills & organizations | Data Science | Data Governance | AI Compliance Officer | AI Governance
?? WARNING: THIS ARTICLE MAY CAUSE AN EXISTENTIAL CRISES ??
Before you read this rant, let me offer a friendly public service announcement. This article is absolutely, freaking depressing. It is a doomsday prophecy that I have tried to hide in a bit of sarcasm, with a dash of humor, and garnished with a lot of despair. So, if you’re feeling fragile, kindly remove any nearby ropes, sharp objects, firearms, prescription pills, or existential crisis triggers. Maybe pop a fluvoxetine (or whatever flavor of serotonin reuptake inhibitor keeps the dark void at bay), pour yourself two stiff drinks, sprinkle in a dash of 4-phosphoryloxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (just kidding, use 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine instead), breathe deeply, and prepare your brittle soul for impact.
Ready?
Good.
Here you go.
More rants after the commercial brake:
The international AI safety report
Gather round dear meatbags, for the grand spectacle of our time! It is the slow-motion car crash known as Artificial Intelligence. Once, it was a hopeful glimmer in the eye of Silicon Valley, and ever since 2023 we all played with it like children with a new toy, but that once innocent AI has matured into a beast that has become so powerful and unpredictable that even the Vatican has taken a break from worrying about demons to issue ethical guidelines about it.
Let me tell you what happened.
30 nations have gathered in a desperate attempt to write a report that confirms we are royally and irreversibly screwed. And to top it all off, the Doomsday Clock just ticked forward to 89 seconds before impact, where it is giving AI a well-earned spot on the VIP list of humanity’s existential threats, right next to nuclear war and climate change.
But don’t panic! (Or, actually, do. It’s probably warranted).
To calm you down, I’ve selected a nice bit of music:
Scientists from 30 countries back it up
If you thought AI was just here to automate your Excel spreadsheets and recommend Netflix shows, you have not been reading TTS' overly optimistic episodes lately. In that case, start with reading the articles from a few months back and I see you back here at the end of next week, ok?
Let’s continue. . .
The International Scientific Report on AI Safety, is backed by 30 countries, and that includes the U.S. and China, who rarely agree on anything. They’ve laid it all out. AI is going to reshape the world in three wonderfully apocalyptic ways: malicious use, catastrophic malfunctions, and systemic collapse.
That’s a whole mouthful of yada, but allow me to explain. . . .
On the malicious use front, our dearly beloved AI is basically a Swiss Army knife for bad actors.
Deepfake propaganda, check. Election interference, check. Cyberwarfare, absolutely! And AI models are now getting alarmingly good at providing step-by-step guides on how to cook up biological or chemical weapons. That’ll definitely make every intelligence agency lose sleep. Because what’s better than a technology that democratizes war crimes.
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And cybercriminals are having the time of their lives. Because AI is making phishing scams so freaking believable, and disinformation campaigns more scalable. Yaa Yaa. You know, back in the day, when we wuz young, them cyberattacks required at least a fair amount of technical knowledge. But now, thanks to AI, even the dumbest script kiddie can deploy an attack that makes real cybersecurity professionals like Adrianus Warmenhoven break out a sweat. AI is enabling hackers, and it is mass-producing them at the same time.
Then there’s malfunctioning AI, which is a nice way of saying “AI screwing up in ways that make Boeing look good by comparison”. These systems, you know, that even their own developers can’t fully explain, and they are already generating factually incorrect medical advice, they are spewing biased nonsense, and in some cases even, fabricating entire court cases. And yet, industries keep integrating them into critical infrastructure with agentic AI, because efficiency is sexy and consequences are a problem for Future Us.
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Imagine a scenario where AI is running a hospital’s patient management system. A minor glitch, maybe a misinterpreted data entry, leads the AI to decide that a patient doesn’t need their life-saving medication. Ooopsie. Or take self-driving cars. These bad boys are still struggling with basic object recognition, but still we are supposed to believe that they will navigate a chaotic city. But in reality, they are more likely to misidentify pedestrians as street furniture and roll through a crosswalk like a bowling ball through pins.
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And last, there’s something called systemic risks, which is where the real funeral of mankind starts. And I am talking about the economic disruption that AI will bring, that will make the Industrial Revolution look like a gentle career transition. Suuuuure, some optimists argue that AI will “create more jobs than it destroys”, yeah like a few hundreds of thousands for the tens to hundreds of millions that it destroyed, but they also assume that corporations will suddenly develop a conscience and not simply replace millions of workers with cheaper, faster, non-unionized algorithms. And as a cherry on top, the AI is about to solidify its place in the hands of a few monopolistic, soulless Big Tech kahuna’s. And that means that when (not if) something goes catastrophically wrong, the entire global economy will take a synchronized nosedive.
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The biggest players are Google, Amazon, Microsoft, own over two-thirds of the infrastructure that powers AI. If one of them goes down, so does everything from hospitals to financial markets. Just imagine…. one fine morning, an update goes rogue, some obscure AI model gets confused, and suddenly, the global supply chain collapses. Your banking app is fried, your hospital records are gone, and your self-driving car? Enjoy your high-speed crash into a lamppost.
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The Vatican weighs in
Enter the Vatican, stage left. Ok, when even the Pope is worried about AI, you know things have gone off the rails. The Church has issued a formal doctrine that warns us that AI must remain a tool, and not a replacement for human intelligence. A noble sentiment, and I totally agree, but let’s be real, corporations replaced human intelligence with quarterly profits decades ago.
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The Vatican says that there are several key dangers, starting with autonomous weapons, which will remove moral judgment from the battlefield. Just think about it… a war run by algorithms. Machine learning decides which villages get bombed based on engagement metrics. That will be an arms race which no human general will be able to control.
Then there’s the charming idea of AI replacing human relationships. The lonely souls out there are already forming emotional bonds with code that talks back. Who needs a whining spouse when ChatGPT can whisper sweet little words in your ear with perfect grammar? The Vatican calls this a “loss of authentic human connection”. Silicon Valley calls it “a business opportunity.”
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Already, there’s a disturbing trend of people seeking emotional support from AI instead of actual humans. Therapy bots, AI life coaches, even AI priests and churches (yup, they exist). It is all happening. But what happens when the algorithm starts prioritizing engagement over truth? When AI starts telling people what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear? Congratulations, we’ve just automated delusion.
The Vatican also touches on AI’s environmental cost. While tech companies talk about “the cloud” as if it’s some magical, weightless space where data lives, the Vatican reminds us that AI guzzles enormous amounts of energy and water, contributing to CO2 emissions on par with some small countries. So, while AI may help us model climate change, it’s also making sure we get to experience it in real-time, with extreme weather events brought to you by the same servers running your favorite AI chatbot.
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AI has secured its spot on the apocalypse leaderboard
If you were hoping for a silver lining to this story, well, sorry to disappoint you (again). The Doomsday Clock, that symbolic measure of how close humanity is to complete self-destruction, has ticked forward to 89 seconds till midnight, and that is the closest we’ve ever been. And AI is now officially VIP club member.
AI-enhanced military operations, cyber warfare, and global destabilization have scientists sounding the alarm. AI-generated propaganda is outpacing fact-checkers (which have been rendered obsolete recently), rogue AI systems are making their own decisions in high-stakes environments, and governments are barely keeping up. We are, quite literally, handing the keys to our future to an algorithm that doesn’t understand the concept of consequences.
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And world leaders are still discussing regulations - mainly in the EU (because we are good at long conversations) - and at the same time, the U.S. has abandoned them altogether with Executive Order 14179 (remember that one for posterity, folks). And Big Tech is actively building the next generation of AI and the infrastructure to support it (Stargate). The pace of AI development is a Formula 1 race with no brakes, and the world’s regulatory bodies are riding a horse-drawn carriage, and they are hoping that it will slow down.
Well, I can tell you from experience. It won’t. The number of research papers about new AI developments have exponentially increased over the last few years. I read about new stuff every day, 2 hours straight, and I cannot keep up.
So th-th-th-that's all, folks. AI is coming for your job and it’s coming for your economy, democracy, and even your soul. But hey, at least it will generate really convincing deepfake apologies when things go south.
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The Vatican hopes that we will choose morality over convenience. Scientists hope that we will slow down before AI-driven calamity is irreversible. Governments hope… well, they hope to look busy. And Big Tech keeps rolling out more powerful models at an astonishing speed, because it’s war - the AI war, so why let a little existential dread get in the way of market dominance?
Enjoy the show while it lasts, folks.
Because if AI doesn’t kill us, my cynicism surely will.
Signing off from _____________ (you fill it in - best one receives a positive pat on the back)
Marco
Well, that’s a wrap for today. Tomorrow, I’ll have a fresh episode of TechTonic Shifts for you. If you enjoy my writing and want to support my work, feel free to buy me a coffee ??
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To keep you doomscrolling ??
The AI revolution is here, and it’s shaping the world in ways we never imagined! It’s empowering businesses and individuals alike. Keep leading the charge toward a smarter tomorrow!
Statistics, Mathematics and Computer Science undergrad
1 个月The whole doom clock thing is fine and all but having it minute or two away is to me kinda dumb. Still you can't ignore some of the threats it’s pointing to. The real problem though is the incompetent selfish people put incharge of things who simply can't see past their own interests to care about any of this.
Just got my daily dose of doomsday. Now I am feeling so much better! Thank you. But honestly: The report you mention is very interesting and I will ask AI to summarize it for me. Just to close the loop.
Bible lover. Founder at Zingrevenue. Insurance, coding and AI geek.
1 个月I am grateful for these time saving articles, Marco van Hurne! I had no idea that the Vatican would be worried! Keep the humour coming! The scariest thing about the article is the arXiv paper graph! I thought you were going to write about the exit tax fiasco ?? but Professor Yoshua Bengio et al's International AI Safety Report paper is worth its weight in gold - thank you!
Adviseur ux & usability
1 个月Finally, a feel-good posting from you to start off my day. Thank you and keep them coming.