According to a recent study, highly developed artificial intelligence might endanger humanity and wipe out entire civilizations.
The study, which was posted on the ArXiv preprint server but has not yet undergone peer review, suggested that the solution to the Fermi Paradox's "Great Filter" might be concealed in artificial intelligence, with the potential to wipe out intelligent life in the universe before it interacts with other forms.
The question is, "Where are they all?" The Fermi paradox has perplexed scientists for a long time. The Fermi Paradox answers the troubling issue, "Why have humans not yet encountered extraterrestrial life if it is possible in the universe?"
Numerous ideas have been advanced to this point that provide various justifications for our lone existence in the universe.
There is still a perplexing cosmic stillness, despite probabilistic calculations like the well-known Drake Equation suggesting that there may be many intelligent civilizations in the galaxy.
According to the Great Filter theory, which has gained popularity, some events needed for the emergence of sentient life are practically unattainable, leading to cosmic silence.
This theory's logical counterargument is that life might not be growing throughout the universe because of some terrible cosmic occurrence.
"This could be a spontaneous event or, more worryingly, something intelligent beings did to themselves and caused their extinction," stated Mark Bailey of the National Intelligence University (NIU), the study's author.
According to the new research, the development of artificial intelligence might be the kind of catastrophic event that could endanger a whole civilization.
In the study, Dr. Bailey uses the Great Filter framework in relation to the possible long-term harm of technology like artificial intelligence that we don't completely understand.
The NIU scientist noted that although we don't fully comprehend artificial intelligence, this technology is "seeping rapidly into our lives" and that people are "terrible at intuitively predicting long-term risk."
Bailey predicted, "Future AI will probably move toward more generalizable, targeted systems with more meaningful controls, where the consequences of unintended consequences will become significantly more severe."
The "second species argument," with advanced artificial intelligence acting as a de facto "second intelligent species" with which we would share our planet, is something Dr. Bailey proposed.
The NIU researchers stated that the "potential implications are troubling" in light of what transpired during the time when modern humans and Neanderthals coexisted on Earth.
In the study, Dr. Bailey concluded that "it seems plausible that an uncontrollable technology, particularly a targeted technology like artificial intelligence, would be a strong Great Filter candidate."