When AlphaZero was done with Stockfish, it didn’t take a break. Pfft,
please! Breaks are for frail humans. Instead, as soon as it had finished with
Stockfish, AlphaZero began teaching itself the strategy game Shogi.
Shogi is often referred to as Japanese chess, but many argue that it’s more
complex than chess.^6 Whereas Kasparov lost to a computer in 1997, top
Shogi players didn’t begin to lose to computers until 2013. Either way,
AlphaZero destroyed the top Shogi software (called “Elmo”), and by a
similarly astounding margin: in one hundred games, it won ninety, lost eight,
and drew two. Once again, AlphaZero’s computational powers were far less
than Elmo’s. (In this case, it could calculate forty thousand moves per second
compared to Elmo’s thirty-five million.) And once again, AlphaZero hadn’t
even known how to play the game the previous day.
In the morning, it taught itself two infinitely complex games. And by
sundown, it had dismantled the best-known competition on earth.
News flash: AI is coming. And while chess and Shogi are one thing, as soon
as we take AI out of the board games and start putting it in the board
rooms . . . well, you and I and everyone else will probably find ourselves out
of a job.^7
Already, AI programs have invented their own languages that humans
can’t decipher, become more effective than doctors at diagnosing pneumonia,
and even written passable chapters of Harry Potter fan fiction.^8 At the time of
this writing, we’re on the cusp of having self-driving cars, automated legal
advice, and even computer-generated art and music.^9
Slowly but surely, AI will become better than we are at pretty much
everything: medicine, engineering, construction, art, technological innovation.
You’ll watch movies created by AI, and discuss them on websites or mobile
platforms built by AI, moderated by AI, and it might even turn out that the
“person” you’ll argue with will be an AI.
But as crazy as that sounds, it’s just the beginning. Because here is where
the bananas will really hit the fan: the day an AI can write AI software better
than we can.
When that day comes, when an AI can essentially spawn better versions
of itself, at will, then buckle your seatbelt, amigo, because it’s going to be a
wild ride and we will no longer have control over where we’re going.
AI will reach a point where its intelligence outstrips ours by so much that
we will no longer comprehend what it’s doing. Cars will pick us up for
reasons we don’t understand and take us to locations we didn’t know existed.
We will unexpectedly receive medications for health issues we didn’t know