The Illusion Of AI’s Existential Risk

Blake Richards, Blaise Agüera y Arcas, Guillaume Lajoie and Dhanya Sridhar at Noema:

Characterizations of evolution as being about interspecies competition and selfishness are a misrepresentation of what evolutionary biology tells us and may be rooted in our own unique phylogenetic history as primates — and patriarchal assumptions. In general, mutualism and cooperation between species are very likely to emerge from the pressures of natural selection.

What we know about extinction events tells us that they are generally caused by changes to the environment, and when they are a result of one species’ impact on another, extinction is induced in one of three ways: competition for resources, hunting and over-consumption or altering the climate or their ecological niche such that resulting environmental conditions lead to their demise. None of these three cases apply to AI as it stands.

more here.