A Renowned Futurist Says We Should Merge With AI to Protect Humanity

Artificial intelligence (AI) is already besting human intelligence in a number ways. Google and DeepMind's AlphaGo Zero is arguably the greatest Go player in the world, and it learned the game by teaching itself. DeepMind researchers claim they never even reached the limit of the AI's potential, meaning it could be capable of even more impressive tasks.

AlphaGoZero is just one of many AIs under development across the globe, and as the industry continues to grow, these systems are going to get smarter and smarter. According to futurist Ian Pearson, humanity's only option if it wants to maintain pace is to merge with AI.

Pearson made this assertion today, February 13, during a panel hosted by CNBC at the World Government Summit in Dubai.

"The fact is that AI can go further than humans, it could be billions of times smarter than humans at this point," said Pearson. "So we really do need to make sure that we have some means of keeping up. The way to protect against that is to link that AI to your brain so you have the same IQ...as the computer."

Pearson isn't the first to suggest humans merge with AI. Elon Musk has floated the idea in the past, and he even started a company, Neuralink, to work on developing the technology necessary to make it happen.

Pearson cited Musk's reservations about developing advanced AI during the panel: "I don't actually think it's safe, just like Elon Musk...to develop these superhuman computers until we have a direct link to the human brain...and then don't get way ahead."

Some foresee such a merger leading to the creation of enhanced humans.

During a World Government Summit panel on Monday, Sebastian Thrun, founder of Udacity and co-founder of Google X, said he believed AI would eventually make people "superhuman," and last year, Ray Kurzweil, Google's chief engineer, said AI would enhance, rather than displace, humanity.

In truth, augmenting humans was on a lot of people's minds at the World Government Summit, which drew industry leaders, experts, and government officials from around the world.

"Such a gathering has been much needed and will help the international community embrace the enormously positive impact of AI while at the same time getting prepared to mitigate potential downsides," Cyrus Hodes, Vice President and Director of the AI Initiative, told Futurism.

If Pearson is right, we'll need all of those powerful minds working together to ensure humans remain in control of AI and not the other way around.