If something can be done, someone will do it.

Sam Altman is one of the central authors of our combined future and as he is publicly wearing an excited grin, proclaiming that super intelligent AI is nearly here, and he’s “not sad about it being smarter than him.” Some of us stare in a collective side-eye, wondering if we should be thrilled, terrified, or just grateful that someone brought snacks?

Because this is what we do.

We invent things, fire, dynamite, nuclear weapons, viruses capable of exterminating humanity in a weekend, and soon, super-intelligent systems that can do things faster and smarter than we ever could. As impressive as advances in AI iswe probably should at least be aware of the awkward detail that we, us humans, historically, have a knack for messing up.

We’re that friend who claims to be the “designated driver” but keeps downing shots. So when Sam Altman is whispering sweet nothings about the singularity, some godlike intelligence blossoming out of lines of code should we ask,

Do we have a kill switch?

To be fair to Sam, he’s not alone. A sizable chunk of tech-savvy folks believes wholeheartedly in the march to superintelligence. The pitch goes like this: “We’ll solve disease, end poverty, and clean up the planet!” Everything will be amazing!

However, for every bright-eyed optimist, there’s someone else in the back yelling, “Hello?”

You sure we can wrangle a godlike AI?”

Add to that the delightful reality that humans are unpredictable. We can’t even agree on how to fold pizza, so how can we trust each other to responsibly wield something that might outstrip all human intellect combined?

The real terror is not AI itself, it is the folks with big egos and itchy trigger fingers who gain control of it. After all, if you can code or direct a hyperintelligent algorithm to, say, sabotage your geopolitical rivals, dismantle a federal government or engineer a cunning new virus, well, that opens the door to full-on supervillain territory.

If there’s one lesson from the past, it’s that if something can be done, no matter how questionable, someone will definitely do it.

We already see smaller versions of this. AI is used to generate disinformation, to manipulate stock markets, to create hyper-realistic deepfakes that could tank elections or spread propaganda in a single viral video. Now magnify that by a factor of a thousand and imagine it governed by a small clique of cunning opportunists.

If that sounds paranoid, well it kind of is but we do have a track record. Let’s remember that we, the hairless apes with nuclear toys, also still tussle over who left the toilet seat up.

Sometimes it’s good to be a little paranoid.

Sure, there are positives. AI might help us develop personalized medicine that zaps cancer with pinpoint precision. Maybe it revolutionizes resource distribution so that no one goes hungry, or coordinates a global pandemic response in seconds rather than months. Picture an AI reading a million scientific papers a minute to cure diseases that have plagued us for centuries. That’s the promise that gets Sam and others grinning in interviews: a technological leap that could vault us from petty squabbles to real problem-solving.

But that brings us to the big question: “What if the problem is… us?” Even if the AI isn’t out to turn us into paperclips, we still have to worry about humans hijacking it for profit, power revenge, and chaos.

Remember that when people say “We need oversight,” they really mean “We better stay in control, or at least keep the other guys from using it against us first.”

Will a superintelligent system be an objective referee, free of bias or agenda? Of course it can, but it can also be the opposite. In the end the outcome is decided by us humans. The creators.

Then there’s the matter of unstoppable viruses in labs. Another shining example of “What could possibly go wrong?” We humans, so inquisitive, so bright… apparently can’t resist cooking up lethal pathogens, presumably to see if we can. The rationalization is “We need to understand it so we can protect ourselves,” but it also sets up a scenario where some deranged or desperate group might unleash it—accidentally or otherwise. Couple that with advanced AI, which could refine, produce, or distribute such a pathogen more efficiently for any bozo with aspirations of power, and we are faced with a thriller scenario.

So, are we as a species ready to act responsibly with unlimited power? The track record says… probably not but the optimism of Sam Altman and many in the tech sphere hinges on a future where we get our act together just enough to avoid self-implosion. Maybe, ironically, building an intelligence smarter than us is the only hail mary that pulls us out of our everlasting cycle of messing up.

Or could it be the final step off the cliff.

So, do we ban AI? Lock down all the labs? That’s not going to happen—banning something that can be developed behind a keyboard is like trying to outlaw daydreams.

The arms race has already begun. And the best we can do might be to keep talking about it, honestly, openly, and with a healthy dose of grown-up deductive logics.

Ignoring the risk is the surest path to catastrophe. Think of it like this: if you see a kid playing with matches, do you pretend it’s perfectly safe?

I think Sam, and many like him is betting on a cosmic-level “singularity” intelligence to be more benevolent than we are.

Maybe he’s right?

But it doesn’t take a superintelligence to figure out that if we don’t start acting like grown-ups, we won’t even need an evil AI to do us in. We’re fully capable of destroying ourselves with plain old-fashioned hubris—and maybe a conveniently engineered virus or two—long before the singularity arrives to cheer or condemn us.

So if you want a final comedic button on this entire show, here it is: we better hope Sam’s right and that the super-smart AI is patient enough to deal with our nonsense.

Because if it’s anything like us, it might decide five minutes in that we’re too loud, too messy, and just a bit too fond of building doomsday devices then pull the plug on our entire clown act.

It’d be tough to fault it for making that call.

By 2ndrevolution.org