How Far Is AI Capable of Delivering on Its Promises and Changing Our Civilization?

Author(s): Jesus L. Lobo

Originally published on Towards AI.

This is one of the questions that comes to mind whenever we read about the latest advances and promises of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The bombardment of information on the progress of AI is continuous and comes from many fronts with different objectives; either they convey excessive optimism (e.g. super-intelligent, conscious AI, etc.) or on the contrary they draw dystopian scenarios (e.g. AIs that are going to exterminate humanity). In either case, many times with opinions or information far from reality, and with a confused objective, which causes us to have often a wrong idea of AI and its real transformative potential.

Shedding light and clarity on this issue is the aim of this post based on the scientific article titled: “Can transformative AI shape a new age for our civilization?: Navigating between speculation and reality” [1].

From science fiction to reality: how far?

AI and its capabilities have been the subject of speculation and confined to science fiction since its inception. Today, we can say with certainty that it has become a mature discipline, evolving into one of the most potentially transformative forces for our civilization. In recent decades, the evolution of AI has moved from theoretical speculation to tangible achievements. More recent systems based on foundational models, and in particular those based on generative AI, are demonstrating more than remarkable capabilities, outperforming human performance in specific areas such as strategic games, natural language processing, and image recognition, among others. However, the impact of AI on our civilization goes beyond its technical and algorithmic achievements. Its integration into critical societal functions, from healthcare to governance, can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, AI promises to solve complex problems such as climate modeling, personalized medicine, and economic optimization. On the other hand, it raises concerns about surveillance, labor displacement, algorithmic biases, or jeopardizing democratic values, for example. This highlights the urgency of establishing sound ethical frameworks and governance structures for AI. We stand on the brink of a potential civilization-level leap; although this leap may already have taken its first steps, its impact on our society remains uncertain. Whether it will lead to unprecedented prosperity, a catastrophic outcome, or another bubble that will burst, will depend not only on technological advances but also on how our civilization chooses to harness and regulate this powerful tool of unparalleled transformative potential.

Is AI just another disruptive technology?

The idea of a transformative breakthrough is not new. History leaves examples of innovations that have catalyzed epochal change, such as the invention of the steam engine during the Industrial Revolution or the rise of the Internet in the Information Age. Since its inception, the field of AI has gone through multiple cycles of optimism and stagnation, commonly known as “AI summers” and “AI winters”. These phases of heightened research enthusiasm and investment have alternated with periods of disillusionment and decreased funding, as initial technological promises fell short.

However, what distinguishes AI from earlier advances is its potential to serve as a “general-purpose technology”, with capabilities that span nearly every domain of human activity. As research progresses, discussions are increasingly focused on whether AI may represent not only a significant technological advance but a crucial change in civilization itself. While the excitement around AI is palpable, so too are the ethical, social, and existential challenges that it poses.

The AI Ethics role and its challenges

To assess whether AI truly represents a turning point for our civilization, we must raise our perspective, otherwise we run the risk of treating it as just another technology, losing the vision that current circumstances demand. In this vision, Ethics must be a capital tool, an integral part of the design and implementation of AI from the beginning, and not an afterthought. How Ethics perceives AI is crucial to its development as a truly transformative technology and its subsequent integration into our civilization. This perception affects not only its adoption and regulation but also the development of applications in key areas in almost every human facet. It also helps to understand the impact and consequences of our actions and decisions, as well as our interests, moral values, and the future of our civilization. In a changing world certain aspects of our humanity, our essences, must remain constant as AI transforms everything around us. And to know which aspects to maintain and how, we must use Ethics as a tool to help us weigh change. We need an AI aligned with our values, not driven solely by economic interests. It would be a shame to have at our fingertips a multipurpose tool with the potential to overcome some of our civilization’s most pressing challenges, only to be left with its ability to make money.

But the application of Ethics to AI is not without its challenges. First, the diversity of ethical approaches can lead to conflicts when trying to establish a unified ethical framework, as different approaches may suggest different and even contradictory actions in the same situation. Moreover, Ethics is not universal and can vary significantly according to cultural and social context; what is considered ethical in one culture may not be ethical in another. This variability complicates the creation and implementation of global ethical standards, as these cultural and social differences need to be considered and respected.

This is where we find the European AI Act as an effort to reconcile the different ethical perspectives in its regulatory framework. It is the first comprehensive regulation of AI by a major regulator and can be seen as the formalization of a social contract between governments, developers, companies, and the general public.

Transformative AI … but in what form?

Despite great advances occurring practically every month, AI is still largely dependent on humans, lacking full autonomy and human capabilities such as complex reasoning to fully understand its actions or perceive its environment holistically. Achieving the quintessence of AI, either in the form of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) or a conscious entity or similar, is the race that the big tech companies and all-powerful labs have been presenting to us for some time now. And this is what is being sold in the short or medium term, but we think that it will have to wait, or be discarded in part as the capabilities of this type of AI are conceived; for now closer to fiction than to science. If anything, some decaffeinated version will be sold to us as a definitive achievement, such as the goal set by the company OpenAI: “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans in the most economically costly jobs”; although this would undoubtedly constitute a major advance. There is no consensus on the definition and scope of this quintessence today, so we will be at the mercy of what they want to sell us. Furthermore, we may not need this quintessence to have an AI that will transform our civilization. An airplane does not fly like a bird does, a submarine does not swim or dive like a sperm whale can, yet both of these advances have been milestones despite their differences with biology.

“The question of whether machines can think is about as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim.” — Edsger W. Dijkstra

So, the debate about a truly transformative AI may not focus on whether it can think or be conscious like a human, but on its ability to perform complex, cross-domain (“general purpose”) tasks autonomously and efficiently. It is important to recognize that the value and usefulness of machines do not depend on their ability to exactly replicate human thinking and cognitive abilities but on their ability to achieve similar or better results using different methods. Although the human brain has inspired much of the development of contemporary AI (e.g., neural networks), it does not need to be the definitive model for the design of a superior AI. Perhaps, by freeing AI development from strict neural emulation, researchers can explore novel architectures and approaches that optimize different goals, constraints, and capabilities, potentially overcoming the limitations of human cognition in certain contexts. This conceptual flexibility highlights the potential of AI as an innovation that would not be constrained by biology but would be nurtured by it.

Challenges on the road to a transformative AI

There are many challenges ahead to think about this transformative AI in the short term. Considering some human factors that could be a stumbling block in this path towards a transformative AI, we can find: the information overload we receive, the possible misalignment with our human values, the negative perception we may be acquiring, the view of AI as our competitor, the over-reliance on human expertise, the possible perceived futility of Ethics in AI, the loss of trust, over-regulation, diluted efforts in research and application, the idea of human obsolescence, or the possibility of an “AI-cracy”, for example. However, this also implies that scientific-technological factors may appear as barriers that we must overcome before reaching a truly transformative AI, such as the data paradox, the difficulty in recognizing the emergence of new capabilities in AI, the “modeling of the world” (World Modeling), the challenges in sustainability and the physical limitations, or the lack of consensus in the theoretical foundations of computation on the possibility of having a human-level AI, among other factors.

The “green shoots”

However, there are indeed some “green shoots” that make us think that it could become possible; and probably not looking at them individually, but through an intersection between many of them, as if it were a call effect, feeding back on each other. From the scientific-technological point of view, we have multi-agent autonomous systems, advances in neuro-computing, interactive AI, advances in specialized hardware, highly sophisticated virtual environments, causal modeling, Open-World learning approaches, self-improving and self-learning techniques, and quantum computing, among others. From a non-scientific-technological point of view, we could talk about the integration of interdisciplinary approaches, advances in global collaboration, significant investments in AI, or the emergence of new approaches for data generation and processing (learning).

But what really brings to mind a civilization-wide transformation through AI is a possible “scientific explosion”, or as Dario Amodei (CEO and co-founder of Anthropic) recently put it, “the compressed 21st century”. AI is beginning to play an increasingly broad role in science [2], spanning numerous fields and acting both as a catalyst for scientific breakthroughs and as an essential tool in the research process (e.g. AlphaFold, LucaProt, the “AI Scientists” [3], etc.). This development could usher in a new era characterized by accelerated discoveries, driving progress at the frontiers of knowledge and achieving results that overcome the limitations of current methodologies. Such acceleration has the potential to address crucial societal challenges, such as climate change, public health, and the green and digital transitions, among others.

Would we need a new ethical and philosophical perspective?

Finally, we would like to bring the focus to an aspect that we consider relevant: what would happen after such an AI is achieved? Profound changes could arise in the ethical and philosophical frameworks that guide our interaction with this disruptive technology, maybe requiring new forms of philosophical thinking. This fact could challenge current conceptions of consciousness and identity. For example, functionalist theories suggest that consciousness could be defined by processes, not by the biological substrate, which would imply reinterpreting Cartesian dualism and expanding the concept of “personhood” to non-biological entities based on their rationality and self-awareness. From an ethical point of view, it would be questioned whether AI could become a moral agent. According to the Theory of Responsibility, those with power have moral obligations to the life forms they impact. Thus, an AI with transformative power could assume responsibilities toward humans and its own existence. More extreme and futuristic positions, such as the transhumanist movement led by Nick Bostrom, see AI as a logical stage in human evolution, warning of existential risks if not aligned with human values. Authors such as philosopher Yuval Noah Harari suggest that a “religion of artificial intelligence” could emerge, which would attribute an almost divine status to these entities, redefining current religious and philosophical systems. In this context, a “meta-philosophy” or “meta-religion” could emerge to reconcile humanity with synthetic intelligences, transforming our notions of purpose and morality.

Concluding

We would like to conclude by emphasizing the relevance of taking a long-term view in the development and application of AI. Rather than focusing solely on immediate achievements, we should propose a strategic approach that ensures that AI systems are designed and used for the benefit of everybody and global advancement as a civilization. Achieving this goal requires balancing technical progress with a strong ethical commitment, and fostering education that empowers future generations to interact critically and effectively with these technologies.

“Let us start taking real control on Artificial Intelligence, as it seems we still have time.” — The authors of [1]

References

[1] Lobo, J. L., & Del Ser, J. (2024). Can transformative AI shape a new age for our civilization?: Navigating between speculation and reality. arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.08273.

[2] Reddy, C. K., & Shojaee, P. (2024). Towards Scientific Discovery with Generative AI: Progress, Opportunities, and Challenges. arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.11427.

[3] Lu, C., Lu, C., Lange, R. T., Foerster, J., Clune, J., & Ha, D. (2024). The ai scientist: Towards fully automated open-ended scientific discovery. arXiv preprint arXiv:2408.06292.

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Published via Towards AI