Just got a different idea. One big timeline, starting from the first social media ranking algorithms to human extinction.
2010s: Ranking algorithms. Our first encounter with neural networks. Digital brains that learn what humans click on, what they keep watching. Companies fight a battle down the brainstem for out attention to serve us the most ads, that we are most likely to click on.
2023-2024: Fake media. Images and audio become hard to discern from reality. People are scammed through fake video calls. AI-written articles start to make up the majority of what is on the internet. Fake profiles and reviews are more common that real ones. Online trust is irreversibly damaged.
2024 AI warfare. Neural networks make decisions on who is a target, and who gets to live. The first fully autonomous weapons are being deployed. This is just getting started.
=== WE ARE HERE ===
Current AI systems already pose us problems that need fixing. But we still have time to prevent the next wave of problems:
Job loss. As AI becomes able to do more human tasks autonomously, so will it be able to take more and more jobs. The largest wave of joblessness takes hold, as a small number of companies amass wealth at unprecedented levels.
Death of democracy. In an internet flooded with convincing fake information, promoted to target individuals, our democratic feedback mechanism fails to function.
AI-powered weapons of mass destruction. AI models become superhuman hackers. They can find new vulnerabilities and create more potent compunterviruses that could disrupt entire economies and societies. New biological viruses are created, optimized for lethality, virality and immunorisistance. Vaccinations cannot keep up.
Loss of control. Autonomous AI models are placed in more and more positions of power, and start taking control on their own.
Human Extinction. We are outcompeted by a more powerful, capable lifeform.
