Ghostly beast
Konstantin Starodetskii
I was running along the Hudson River in New York at night, and the red glow from "exit" signs inside of the buildings attracted my attention. I felt an evil presence in them as if some secret power controls all those structures. I could almost sense its invisible heartbeat.
Then I thought this "ghostly beast" has eyes as well. Surveillance cameras, smartphones, and other devices can see almost everything we do. There is a possibility that this "beast" is Artificial Intelligence (AI), and it secretly uses those devices to gather data. What does it do with it? Could AI decide to expand its influence? If the answer is "yes," it would want to make the world absolutely efficient, but not necessarily in the right way. The ghostly beast could annihilate or enslave all humankind. Perhaps, it would be able to come up with something even worse.
Even though it's impossible to stop the advancement of AI, we can focus on developing our inner abilities, which are still at a very early stage. Even the smartest people use only 13% of their brains. What can we do if we will be able to use more than that? Superpowers might be one of the answers. In the meantime, we have to keep an eye on our relationship with AI.
