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MOSCOW, Apr 23 Artificial intelligence (AI) is the biggest threat to democratic states, Israeli historian and bestselling author of Sapiens: A Brief History says Humanity» by Yuval Noah Harari.
According to him, artificial intelligence is the first technology that can work autonomously, create its own stories and produce unique content, which is a great danger to human dominance on Earth. So the historian signed an open letter calling for a temporary moratorium on research into software like ChatGPT.
In March, American businessman Elon Musk, together with a number of experts in the field of artificial intelligence, signed an open letter in which the authors called for the suspension of AI development for at least six months in order to create firm rules for regulating the development and operation of modern AI technologies, so how the latter can pose serious risks to society and humanity.
Harari noted that artificial intelligence provides an unprecedented opportunity to manipulate public discourse.
“This poses a threat to democracies more than to authoritarian regimes, because democracies rely on public dialogue. Democracy, in essence, is a dialogue. People talk to each other. If the conversation goes into the hands of artificial intelligence, democracy is over.” Harari said in an interview with the British newspaper Daily Telegraph.
At the same time, as Harari noted, if AI falls into the hands of the rulers of totalitarian regimes, the consequences can be catastrophic.
«I don't know if humanity can survive this,» the historian concluded.
Another potential threat is people losing their jobs because they won't have the basic skills needed for the job market of the future, he added.
«We can go to the point where the economic system will consider millions of people completely worthless. This has terrible psychological and political consequences,» Harari said.