We've never made machines that are smarter than human beings. We just don't know how we'll relate to something like that, and what it will mean for us if and when we do it. Eric Hoel: When you live on a planet next to things that are far vastly smarter than you or anyone else they might just build a parking lot over us and we will never ever know why.
They operate according to rules we can never fully understand. They can be unreliable, uncontrollable, and misaligned with human values. They're fast becoming as intelligent as humans--and they're exclusively in the hands of profit-seeking tech companies. "They," of course, are the latest versions of AI, which herald, according to neuroscientist and writer Erik Hoel, a species-level threat to humanity. Listen as he tells EconTalk's Russ Roberts why we need to treat AI as an existential threat.