John Paul M. Joaquin Tech 09.20.2022 20:Sep PM EDT

Will AI Really Take Over the World? Here's Why It'll Never Happen

The topic of AI taking over the world has captured the public imagination ever since the 1980s and possibly before. Movies like those under the "Terminator" and "The Matrix" franchises, and "I, Robot," and video games like Detroit: Become Human and the Horizon games have kept the idea alive.

This fact is becoming increasingly true with the existence of robots like Hanson Robotics' Sophia, which is the first human-like AI robot in the world and the first robot to receive Saudi Arabian citizenship, per Analytics Insight. There's also AI-generated art allegedly threatening artists' careers worldwide.

So is AI on the road to taking over the world and the future a la Skynet, or is it just the premise for a sci-fi movie/video game?

AI Capabilities

Before we decide if we're going to live under the thumb of our AI overlords in the future, let's discuss the capabilities of AI today. A CBS report stated that machines could replace 40% of the world's workers in 15 to 25 years, while PwC says that 30% of jobs will be automated when the 2030s come.

To complement this, AI is being taught by experts how to plan, understand, learn from experience, make decisions, and solve problems to imitate the process of the human mind, per Synder.

This mentoring has led to AI becoming more reliable and even sentient to an extent. Amazon's Alexa can understand human speech and help people perform daily tasks around their smart home.

Meanwhile, social media platforms' recommendations algorithm, like Tik Tok, YouTube, and even Facebook, are learning what we watch or click on to recommend to users the content they want.

You may also remember that Google fired one of its software engineers who claimed that the company's AI chatbot, LaMDA, became sentient, per The Guardian.

At this rate, we may soon have robots that could help us in our day-to-day lives, like those featured in "I, Robot." And if you want a robot to help you out in your daily life, you wouldn't be the first one.

Having a robot/AI help you out with things is an advantage as they never tire and are error-proof. They also never get tired of repetitive and lower-level routine tasks that most people would get tired of quickly.

Finally, and most importantly, AI has high imitating abilities, which allows them to identify patterns to improve and anticipate trends.

Will AI Ever Rule The World?

With the capabilities of AI set in place, it's no wonder that people think that the sci-fi films and video games previously mentioned could turn into reality. However, according to Digital Genius and Forbes, AI is incapable of taking over the world.

Digital Genius co-founder and Chief Strategy officer Mikhail Naumov mentioned that having a living, breathing human team up with AI is still the best way to move forward.

"[AI] is an essential tool that will be, if it is not already, not simply a 'nice to have,' but a 'must-have' technology," Naumov said. "Will [AI] take over the business world? Absolutely. Will it happen in the way they show it in the movies? Probably not."

Additionally, despite the many capabilities of AI, they are unable to imagine like we humans do, feel, adapt to changing situations, and consider short-term and long-term goals.

The AI-generated art that is all the rage today is taking inspiration from art made by established artists, per Make Use Of. Meanwhile, while AI can predict the content people want through its algorithm, it doesn't count the times when we search for something completely different from what they usually want.

As such, having an AI like Skynet and VIKI dictating how the world should run is almost impossible, especially with today's technology.